Followed your instructions and gave it a shot with tiny and cheap 500GB external USB A 3.0 SSD from Seagate on a late 2012 iMac which I was about to throw out of the window... Installed Mojave and upgraded to Catalina. Once it starts booting from the SSD, it’s another machine! Thank you!!!
Thank you so much!! I have a 2013 iMac that I seriously wanted to just toss because it is useless especially for photoshop and Lightroom! I purchased the drive and case that Andrew Tsai linked in his video, and did a clean install as you showed here. Thanks for showing how to format and all of that! There are so many settings! I had already wiped my iMac last spring and haven’t used it much since, so I just did a clean install of Catalina on the SSD like you showed, and used Migration Assistant to copy all of my settings and data over from my MacBook!! It is a while new machine!! I’m speechless!
I am planning to do this on my late 2012 Mac mini and install Catalina. I will use an internal ssd on a docking station for hard drives in order to write the OS and maybe leave it to boot as is. Alternatively I need to open up my mac mini and replace the old hard drive with the new one but after having seem the videos I don’t feel comfortable doing that. Glad this is a viable solution for old macs.
João Erthal hi Joao I’m trying to do the exact same thing I’m already in Catalina 10.15 and my App Store looks way different to this. Did you do it from Catalina ?
I did this on a 2013 iMac for $90 with a 1TB SanDisk SSD. Works beautifully now. Except I restored the SSD with a time machine backup so everything was cloned to the ssd.
Thank you for this information. Found a 2014 iMac in the trash fully unlocked got the beach ball but since u said I can boot from an SSD will purchased and make this work
Awesome video. Thank you so much. I have a question, my iMac is late 2015. Is it really faster and safe to run Photoshop, Adobe Premiere, Lightroom, and the whole system through USB 3.0 connection? Is the USB port really that stable? I really want to do this upgrade, but I would like to make sure that an USA connection really can handle everything like the internal connections. Than you so much.
Thanks for the video! I am using iMac 2015 with external Samsung Evo 850 for 2 years. Unfortunately after I updated to Mojave sometimes there occur a kernel panic and the system shuts off. What is the decision? I changed the transcend enclosure to another enclosure. But that did not help
Hi Craig, I was able to install and use Mojave on my iMac's external hard drive... all of a sudden I cannot boot from the hard drive anymore... please help! I can access my external hard drive my 2013 iMac's internal spinning drive... don't understand why it doesn't boot from the external ssd drive anymore. I've tried Command + R and holding down option while it boots up... doesn't give me any option to boot from the external ssd drive
One thing I ran into in case other people run into it. I actually used Super Duper with a 1tb T5 to clone. It cloned without issue but would only boot if I held option key down to manually boot to it. Even when I selected the Samsung External in startup drive in the operating system it still failed to automatically boot to the Samsung drive. I ended up booting to the recovery console while powering up the Imac. They also had an option to select startup. The Samsung was selected already but I believe the key was to hit the restart button and after it booted without having to manually boot.
My T5 arrived about an hour ago and re-installed High Sierra on it as I have a 2011.5 iMac that doesn't support the latest OS. Followed directions just as Craig said to do and it was a jif... super excited for the new start up speed for the OS and apps. Thanks!
Used Carbon Copy and the Samsung T5 500GB to clone my iMac 21” and OMG the speed difference is incredible. Boot time to login 20-30 seconds. Login to full working desktop populated with icons 10-15 seconds. Apps launch 5 seconds or less. I was fed up with the iMac slowness glad this tip to boot from SSD came along. I still have access to my files on the internal 1TB hard drive.
Excuseme I have a question about the live of your Ssd. In this 2021 how is the live of your Ssd, still have the same speed, had you ever changed for another Ssd?. It's because I want do put an external Ssd in my iMac 2013 late and I want to have a longer live with my Ssd.
You have to select 'APFS' from the format dropdown part at @3:00 and you need to select 'Macintosh HD' not 'Macintosh HD - Data' (new Catalina splits it up into two logical volumes). Download Carbon Copy and use the free trial, it will show you a help page at startup about these new details for Catalina. Did it today with same Samsung T5 1TB, made a bootable clone with no issues. also this article dosent belong to me
@voidness I am planning to do the same using a T5 for my imac 2013. Do u face any issues like heating of T5 or anything else..... if u r using that as a main Bootable external drive and running the imac always from it.
Thanks for this tutorial. The difference between my late 2012 iMac's HDD and Samsung T5 SSD has been night and day! Just remember to format the SSD to APFS if you plan on installing Mojave or later. I have one quick question; do we need to do any post installation housekeeping? I know TRIM isn't supported on the USB bus, only SATA and Thunderbolt, but anything else to prolong the life of the external SSD?
How is your 2012 hooked up? Ext SSD to USB3? Or did you find a way to do it to Thunderbolt 2 port? If the latter, can you give me names of the hardware enclosure and adapter, pls?
@@db9091 i'm on the same boat. i know 5 months have passed but did you solve this? i couldn't find any usb-c to thunderbolt 2 adapter and i guess using the usb port reduces performance
Craig, thank you for posting it. I have subscribed. I have a question. I upgraded to Monterey my 2017 21,5 inches iMac and I regret because I can not use my audio interface among other things. What can I do? I can not download Mojave and have no Time Machine.
I just wanted to ask as my internal storage is allocated for 75% windows and 25 for Mac(Catalina using bootcamp) since its too slow I just bought an 1tb ssd can I boot my mac(Catalina) with that ssd if follow these steps??
Great tutorial. You say you can use the original internal HDD as storage if you wipe it. I am looking at getting a 2TB version of the Samsung SSD and using the internal drive to hold either my Music (iTunes) and Photos database or Time Machine. Thanks
I did the exact procedure you outline here (before I saw this video) and my installation was fine but somehow I found that my access to what was on my iMac HD was severely limited. For example I was asked to sign in as a new user and though I signed in exactly as I did on High Sierra it showed me as a new user. I had no access to my old desktop or all the files that were on it. Reading and writing to the iMac was very slow so I would guess that the only to go is to transfre all relavent files to the SSD.
Went to Apple Store as you said and High Sierra [which is what I need] cannot be found; I suspect Apple have hidden it. Any ideas on where to go, now? Ray, London UK
Great video! Question...what is the best way to copy Apple Photos library from the Mac's HDD to the Boot Drive SSD so that the Boot Drive's "Photos" app uses it? Hope that makes sense....Any help would be appreciated.
Thunderbolt is only for monitors ! I did mine on old IMAC 2014 !thru usb ., it won’t go higher than 486 read/write ., so don’t overspend trying to get speediest SSD
Thx for this video , I just downloaded Mohave from the appstore , I want to install it on my new Samsung X5 SSD External , but when I right click or double-click on it to install it on the SSD it tells me : "This copy of the “Install macOS” application is too old to be opened on this version of macOS." how can I install it , I'm running Catalina on my Imac ....Please advice ...thx in advance...
Hi Craig, I have had this running like this for a while now, but have one minor issue. My iMac is always on and it seems that when it’s in sleep mode, the SSD crashes and reboots the Mac. Do you know what this problem might be and how I could solve it?
I got a 1.6 ghz imac late 2015 with intel core i5 processor and 8 gb of ram. I got a 1tb internal HDD, if i buy a 256 gb external ssd and use that as my main drive will my results of my slow mac increase a lot or drastically ?
Thanks Craig. Love your videos. Quick question - where do you store and use your Lightroom Catalog? On your iMac’s internal drive or on a larger external drive via a thunderbolt connection? Thanks.
Good tutorial I'm ready to do this. I am currently running high sierra also and will add external ssd as tutorial showed. So as I understand I would boot from my ssd on a fresh OS but all my work is on the internal drive. Do I have to manually repopulate Mojave with all my apps and files. Sorry this is the part I don't get.
could this work with the mid 2011 imac? I've read thats its not supported on the mojave list. am i out of luck? is this the end of my computers life/updates.?
You have to select 'APFS' from the format dropdown part at @3:00 and you need to select 'Macintosh HD' not 'Macintosh HD - Data' (new Catalina splits it up into two logical volumes). Download Carbon Copy and use the free trial, it will show you a help page at startup about these new details for Catalina. Did it today with same Samsung T5 1TB, made a bootable clone with no issues.
When setting up an external boot drive like this, is it possible to set it up from a time machine backup? For example, If I wanted to set up an external boot drive of Mojave but want my current applications like encore cs6 / premiere cs6 on it but can no longer find the installers -- when creating the boot drive, can I set it up from a time machine backup in order to essentially install my current applications on it without having to go through each individual installer?
I had a similar concern last night, wanting to use an external SSD for imac lt/2015. I din want to lose my convenient settings mostly. Tried cloning the drive manually in recovery mode (the whole story of holding cmd+r just before the gong). It's a bit of a winded road with the new Catalina, but when I woke up this morning it was all done. After restarting SSD, everything loaded as was, right down to volume settings and how I had my stacks arranged. Startup boom. Photoshop, heavy Excel, boom. The only nitpicky differences are the drive's yellow icon on the desktop, and the first time you use any app it will have a couple seconds "verifying photoshop cc2018" or whatever, then future uses will load normal but fast. Its a long story, and no YT has explained it for Catalina yet, shout if you need the steps.
When I go to the app store to download Catalina it simply opens up preferences and asks If I want to download it. Any Idea what I do next as the steps are different now. I am trying to create a bootable macOS onto an external SSD for my late 2013 iMac.
Thank you for sharing this video... I installed Mojave on an external 1TB SSD and it said intallation successful, created all the required folders/subfolders on the external SSD but it didnt go through the setup (language, location, etc) ?! can you direct me, please? Thanks...
CADS not exactly, Macs work with main drives, the Samsung T5 he installed was empty, his info is on his main disk, he installed Mojave in the Samsung T5 so the Mojave he ran was on T5, but if he starts his Mac with his normal disk his computer will go back to normal, he can actually clone his disk on the T5 and make it his main disk.
If I install the Mac OS on the external SSD, would I be able to utilise the internal HD's storage at the same time the OS is running on the external? Or would the system not recognise the internal drive as a storage unit at that point?
Extremely good video but you didn’t answer where you can get the new operating system from and do you have to download it before putting it onto the new drive I was wondering if you could answer this and maybe put a link to where you need to go to download the operating system
Thanks for sharing. Today I got a warning. It says this version of Mac OS 10.14 can’t be installed on the computer. Do you know what the problem might be?
I Got a question. I wanted to boot my mac with Windows a problem being that i did not have enough space according to boot assistent. I went out and bought an external ssd. I copied the iso and unpacked it on the sdd. I was then able to boot from the ssd. The problem being: my keyboard/mouse wont respond. I cant use boot assistent as it does not Work with external. How Can i solve this keyboard/mouse problem so that i Can actualy install Windows.
Did you find out how to do it? I though maybe formatting the external SSD then set the Imac to boot from that external and then install high Sierra or mojave to that?
Yes you can, but when you try you'll probably get this message: "This copy of the “Install macOS” application is too old to be opened on this version of macOS". So I copied the Mojave Install App to a USB stick (16gb). Then rebooted the iMac with the USB plugged in and holding down the 'Option' key. I selected the USB and started the installation process. When it asked on which disk to install, I plugged in my External SSD and chose it. Very easy! Works great!!
Now mu Macintosh is running out of space .. and i wanna download huge app like xcode and so on .. does this method help me out? To download a lot of apps without running out memory anymore ?
I have done this with my iMac late 2013. The hard drive went very very slow. Even Apple support can't do anything. I thought my Mac have a virus. Bought a Samsung 1TB SSD and tried it as an external boot drive at first. It worked. That's the time I decided to replace my internal HDD and upgrade my RAM for $200 Canadian.
Need your help .. my mac is late 2009!.. it runs great although slow editing video on Final Cut Pro .... I’ve updated the ram ... if I get this will it let me play video on final cut pro
Craig Beckta it uploads 4K from my lumix g7 Panasonic to the late imac 2009 ... I’m thinking that If I get the T5 and boot it from that I should improve the speed to edit it possibly?
Hey, not 100 percent sure, but generally when you format a drive to work as a boot drive, like we did in this tutorial, it generally suits that lone purpose. So if I were you I wouldn't unplug it and use it elsewhere unless you're pretty good with computers to start with. There isn't much harm in unplugging the drive when the mac is off, and trying to see if it even opens on a windows computer though, I think.
You have to select 'APFS' from the format dropdown part at @3:00 and you need to select 'Macintosh HD' not 'Macintosh HD - Data' (new Catalina splits it up into two logical volumes). Download Carbon Copy and use the free trial, it will show you a help page at startup about these new details for Catalina. Did it today with same Samsung T5 1TB, made a bootable clone with no issues.
If I do this do I lose any settings I have made to how PS displays. Spent a lot of time getting PS to display the items I want together with shortcuts and 3rd party software plugins and don't wish to lose.
I have a Samsung T7 drive and When I go to erase the drive I don’t get the scheme drop down menu. So I can’t select the GUID partition map :( what is wrong?
Cloned my hard drive to an ssd and when I try boot it up I get a circle with a line through it, I have a WD BLUE SSD, it’s compatible with my MacBook Pro late 2011
One thing I have a question about - I know this is an old video so hopefully someone sees this haha! But now when I airdrop from one device to this Mac, it is showing two iMacs but I only have the one. It’s bugging me and I’ve even wiped the internal drive! The one device has the name of the actual iMac, and the other device has the name of the iMac before I did this upgrade 🤦🏻♀️ Did this happen to anyone else
Speed on the Mac will be based on the speed of USB connection !! The fastest for USB 3 on an old Mac will be only 480 bytes write n read !! The le Mac has no other connection options
Greetings from another Canuck. I've got High Sierra on a 500Gb SSD (which I've just installed) and after rebooting, I get the 'macOS Utilities screen, offering me choices of Restore From Time Machine Backup, Install macOS, Get Help Online and Disk Utility. I'm not being shown the regular route to setup. Thoughts? (I'm on a late-2012 iMac.)
Hi, I have: MacBook Pro (13-inch, Mid 2012) 2.5 GHz Intel Core i5 4 GB 1600 MHz DDR3 Intel HD Graphics 4000 1536 MB Is it 500gb ssd drive enough? or would it be better to get a 1tb instead? what do you think the minimum is to make a good difference? i currently use mojave os, thanks
This is good. The devil is in the details tho. If you want your own system, not fresh install (it would rake me 3+ days to reinstall my music studio) I’d use Carbon Copy Cloner to make an image drive. It will partition correctly and boot from anywhere. Worth every penny for any kind of backup or copy. The other devil is hardware. Which enclosure? SSD to USD3 port or TB2? Not really any option I can see using the much faster TB2 w/o purchasing a breakout I/O for $200+ from OWC, then another $300+ for enclosure and drive (they have amazing NVMe if you want top speed and future reuse) IMO if you’re solution is $500+, you might as well invest in a newer iMac. Keeping a 2012-2017 going is risky with those stuck & fragile screens. Considering the sell price of $2017, you won’t lose much on a 2020 model used.
easy, during setup, there's an option if you want to transfer stuff from "another Mac" or time machine, etc.. click on another Mac and choose the internal drive, then follow the directions on screen.
Followed your instructions and gave it a shot with tiny and cheap 500GB external USB A 3.0 SSD from Seagate on a late 2012 iMac which I was about to throw out of the window... Installed Mojave and upgraded to Catalina. Once it starts booting from the SSD, it’s another machine! Thank you!!!
Was the data on your internal drive still intact after this? Do the apps also move to the ssd?
@@aman681no thing will happen to your hdd
Thank you so much!! I have a 2013 iMac that I seriously wanted to just toss because it is useless especially for photoshop and Lightroom! I purchased the drive and case that Andrew Tsai linked in his video, and did a clean install as you showed here. Thanks for showing how to format and all of that! There are so many settings!
I had already wiped my iMac last spring and haven’t used it much since, so I just did a clean install of Catalina on the SSD like you showed, and used Migration Assistant to copy all of my settings and data over from my MacBook!! It is a while new machine!! I’m speechless!
I am planning to do this on my late 2012 Mac mini and install Catalina. I will use an internal ssd on a docking station for hard drives in order to write the OS and maybe leave it to boot as is. Alternatively I need to open up my mac mini and replace the old hard drive with the new one but after having seem the videos I don’t feel comfortable doing that. Glad this is a viable solution for old macs.
Just completed following your video with a T7 shield 1tb to a 2013 Imac
Way faster..
Thank you for posting this
Great video. Thank you. I've followed the steps and my 2015 iMac is booting from a 1Tb Samsung T5. Feels like a brand new iMac, faster than ever.
João Erthal hi Joao I’m trying to do the exact same thing I’m already in Catalina 10.15 and my App Store looks way different to this. Did you do it from Catalina ?
hello, I have a iMac 2015 and there is no port for USB-C. are you using external SSD on USB port?
I did this on a 2013 iMac for $90 with a 1TB SanDisk SSD. Works beautifully now. Except I restored the SSD with a time machine backup so everything was cloned to the ssd.
Thank you for this information. Found a 2014 iMac in the trash fully unlocked got the beach ball but since u said I can boot from an SSD will purchased and make this work
Awesome video. Thank you so much. I have a question, my iMac is late 2015. Is it really faster and safe to run Photoshop, Adobe Premiere, Lightroom, and the whole system through USB 3.0 connection? Is the USB port really that stable? I really want to do this upgrade, but I would like to make sure that an USA connection really can handle everything like the internal connections.
Than you so much.
Thanks for the video! I am using iMac 2015 with external Samsung Evo 850 for 2 years. Unfortunately after I updated to Mojave sometimes there occur a kernel panic and the system shuts off. What is the decision? I changed the transcend enclosure to another enclosure. But that did not help
Same problem here... It freezes from times to times and I have to force shut down to regain usage of my iMac.
hello, I have a iMac 2015 and there is no port for USB-C. are you using external SSD on USB port?
Hi Craig, I was able to install and use Mojave on my iMac's external hard drive... all of a sudden I cannot boot from the hard drive anymore... please help!
I can access my external hard drive my 2013 iMac's internal spinning drive... don't understand why it doesn't boot from the external ssd drive anymore.
I've tried Command + R and holding down option while it boots up... doesn't give me any option to boot from the external ssd drive
Can you tell me please if this will work with a 27" imac mid 2011 tks....
ya
One thing I ran into in case other people run into it. I actually used Super Duper with a 1tb T5 to clone. It cloned without issue but would only boot if I held option key down to manually boot to it. Even when I selected the Samsung External in startup drive in the operating system it still failed to automatically boot to the Samsung drive. I ended up booting to the recovery console while powering up the Imac. They also had an option to select startup. The Samsung was selected already but I believe the key was to hit the restart button and after it booted without having to manually boot.
My T5 arrived about an hour ago and re-installed High Sierra on it as I have a 2011.5 iMac that doesn't support the latest OS. Followed directions just as Craig said to do and it was a jif... super excited for the new start up speed for the OS and apps. Thanks!
Let me know if there is a noticeable improvement.
Used Carbon Copy and the Samsung T5 500GB to clone my iMac 21” and OMG the speed difference is incredible. Boot time to login 20-30 seconds. Login to full working desktop populated with icons 10-15 seconds. Apps launch 5 seconds or less. I was fed up with the iMac slowness glad this tip to boot from SSD came along. I still have access to my files on the internal 1TB hard drive.
thanks what if I wanted to go back to the original hard drive , can I
by the way great vid new subscriber
Thanks for subbing!
Excuseme I have a question about the live of your Ssd. In this 2021 how is the live of your Ssd, still have the same speed, had you ever changed for another Ssd?. It's because I want do put an external Ssd in my iMac 2013 late and I want to have a longer live with my Ssd.
Hi! Can I attach the t5 ssd to the back of the iMac a little bit tilted? Thanks for this video!
a trick : watch series at flixzone. Me and my gf have been using them for watching all kinds of movies these days.
@Luke Marc Yea, I've been watching on Flixzone for since december myself :D
Hi Craig, this is a great video. I'm looking to do this with Catalina, will the same steps be the approach to take?
You have to select 'APFS' from the format dropdown part at @3:00 and you need to select 'Macintosh HD' not 'Macintosh HD - Data' (new Catalina splits it up into two logical volumes). Download Carbon Copy and use the free trial, it will show you a help page at startup about these new details for Catalina. Did it today with same Samsung T5 1TB, made a bootable clone with no issues. also this article dosent belong to me
@voidness I am planning to do the same using a T5 for my imac 2013. Do u face any issues like heating of T5 or anything else..... if u r using that as a main Bootable external drive and running the imac always from it.
Thanks for this tutorial. The difference between my late 2012 iMac's HDD and Samsung T5 SSD has been night and day! Just remember to format the SSD to APFS if you plan on installing Mojave or later.
I have one quick question; do we need to do any post installation housekeeping? I know TRIM isn't supported on the USB bus, only SATA and Thunderbolt, but anything else to prolong the life of the external SSD?
Will it work with catilina
How is your 2012 hooked up? Ext SSD to USB3? Or did you find a way to do it to Thunderbolt 2 port? If the latter, can you give me names of the hardware enclosure and adapter, pls?
@@db9091 i'm on the same boat. i know 5 months have passed but did you solve this? i couldn't find any usb-c to thunderbolt 2 adapter and i guess using the usb port reduces performance
What about TRIM on the external drive....needed or will there be a problem after a while? Any experience?
Craig, thank you for posting it. I have subscribed. I have a question. I upgraded to Monterey my 2017 21,5 inches iMac and I regret because I can not use my audio interface among other things. What can I do? I can not download Mojave and have no Time Machine.
I just wanted to ask as my internal storage is allocated for 75% windows and 25 for Mac(Catalina using bootcamp) since its too slow I just bought an 1tb ssd can I boot my mac(Catalina) with that ssd if follow these steps??
Can I upgrade my imac 2019 to an external SSD with the NEWEST OS..or is Mojave the only one you can upgrade to.
interesting because I am thinking the same. Seem like you can have Catalina since it is available in app store
@@TuTran-kr2yk You can have all Mac OS versions on external driver.
I just did Catalina today exactly as instructed in this vid. Works great! Much faster than my spinning drive on Mojave (although I kept both).
Ryan Rickerts what cords did you need?
@@saintfuego1822 I just used the USB-C one that came with the drive. Goes in the Thunderbolt 3 port.
Great tutorial. You say you can use the original internal HDD as storage if you wipe it. I am looking at getting a 2TB version of the Samsung SSD and using the internal drive to hold either my Music (iTunes) and Photos database or Time Machine. Thanks
Just a general question on most tutorials. Why not tell people to use spotlight. In this case for Disk Utility. Faster.
I did the exact procedure you outline here (before I saw this video) and my installation was fine but somehow I found that my access to what was on my iMac HD was severely limited. For example I was asked to sign in as a new user and though I signed in exactly as I did on High Sierra it showed me as a new user. I had no access to my old desktop or all the files that were on it. Reading and writing to the iMac was very slow so I would guess that the only to go is to transfre all relavent files to the SSD.
I restored from a Time Machine back up. Everything was transferred over and the machine is working very fast.
Is there any spesific ssd brand ? Or it works for any brand ssd ?
Hi, wondering if I could do this for a late mid 2010 Mac Mini? I have a 3 TB SSD External hard drive and Mac Mini is currently running High Sierra OS.
I think the USB’s are too slow on that machine. They’re not 3.0
Hi Craig, great Video but one question... Why not formating the SSD in APFS? Thanks for yout answer...
I used APFS when I did this a few days ago as it was recommended for SSD’s. It’s working great.
Went to Apple Store as you said and High Sierra [which is what I need] cannot be found; I suspect Apple have hidden it. Any ideas on where to go, now? Ray, London UK
Great video! Question...what is the best way to copy Apple Photos library from the Mac's HDD to the Boot Drive SSD so that the Boot Drive's "Photos" app uses it? Hope that makes sense....Any help would be appreciated.
What happens when I connect a bootable ssd to another computer? Will it still boot up from the ssd ?
Never mind. You answered my question right after I had paused it. Thank you for this great video!
How much does the USB hookup bottleneck the speed of the SSD? Is it even worth paying for the SSD upgrade at that point ?
My 2013 iMac now boots up in 45 seconds and is very snappy. It was a night and day difference from previously.
How many seconds to boot and opening Adobe Apps on this T5?
Craig did you hook up through USB or Thunderbolt
Thunderbolt is only for monitors ! I did mine on old IMAC 2014 !thru usb ., it won’t go higher than 486 read/write ., so don’t overspend trying to get speediest SSD
Can I use samsung ssd T7 for Imac 2012 ?
Can you do this if you have catalina on your main internal drive and want mojave on the external ssd?
Thx for this video , I just downloaded Mohave from the appstore , I want to install it on my new Samsung X5 SSD External , but when I right click or double-click on it to install it on the SSD it tells me : "This copy of the “Install macOS” application is too old to be opened on this version of macOS." how can I install it , I'm running Catalina on my Imac ....Please advice ...thx in advance...
Also have this issue. What did you end up doing?
I have this problem too - any idea how to get around it?
Thanks for the tips!
Happy to help!
Hi Craig, I have had this running like this for a while now, but have one minor issue. My iMac is always on and it seems that when it’s in sleep mode, the SSD crashes and reboots the Mac. Do you know what this problem might be and how I could solve it?
I got a 1.6 ghz imac late 2015 with intel core i5 processor and 8 gb of ram. I got a 1tb internal HDD, if i buy a 256 gb external ssd and use that as my main drive will my results of my slow mac increase a lot or drastically ?
ya
Thanks. It works. The only PROBLEM is that it does not use it for SWAP RAM. So, when all RAM is used by apps, my IMAC crashes. What can I do?
Great video! I have a question. Why wouldn't you use APFS for the external boot drive instead?
You should use that, Mojave’s converts to it prior to install.
@@cbphotovideotips Thank you! Already did it the speed boost was unbelievable. iMac 2012 was brought back to life 🙏
Thanks Craig. Love your videos. Quick question - where do you store and use your Lightroom Catalog? On your iMac’s internal drive or on a larger external drive via a thunderbolt connection? Thanks.
External drive, the Samsung T5 is faster than my Lacie Thunderbolt drive. Getting another 1tb today.
Good tutorial I'm ready to do this. I am currently running high sierra also and will add external ssd as tutorial showed. So as I understand I would boot from my ssd on a fresh OS but all my work is on the internal drive. Do I have to manually repopulate Mojave with all my apps and files. Sorry this is the part I don't get.
I just did this and there is a Mac OS migration tool where you can move your User files, Applications, etc. if you choose.
Can you do this with a macbook also?
Wouldn’t it be better to use a thunderbolt connection instead of usb for this setup?
did u do APFS or mac os extended journaled?
The latter
@@danielfl.9347 if it’s an ssd even if external wouldn’t APFS be better
Would you know please why I can't use my 2nd monitor now I'm booting from my external drive.
Can you do this on a 2010 imac?
Yes
could this work with the mid 2011 imac? I've read thats its not supported on the mojave list. am i out of luck? is this the end of my computers life/updates.?
will this work on a internal ssd??
Can I do this with my iMac 2012 using Catalina now (as it doesn’t support Big Sur) or is it latest version (Big Sur) only?
You have to select 'APFS' from the format dropdown part at @3:00 and you need to select 'Macintosh HD' not 'Macintosh HD - Data' (new Catalina splits it up into two logical volumes). Download Carbon Copy and use the free trial, it will show you a help page at startup about these new details for Catalina. Did it today with same Samsung T5 1TB, made a bootable clone with no issues.
When setting up an external boot drive like this, is it possible to set it up from a time machine backup? For example, If I wanted to set up an external boot drive of Mojave but want my current applications like encore cs6 / premiere cs6 on it but can no longer find the installers -- when creating the boot drive, can I set it up from a time machine backup in order to essentially install my current applications on it without having to go through each individual installer?
I had a similar concern last night, wanting to use an external SSD for imac lt/2015. I din want to lose my convenient settings mostly.
Tried cloning the drive manually in recovery mode (the whole story of holding cmd+r just before the gong). It's a bit of a winded road with the new Catalina, but when I woke up this morning it was all done.
After restarting SSD, everything loaded as was, right down to volume settings and how I had my stacks arranged.
Startup boom. Photoshop, heavy Excel, boom.
The only nitpicky differences are the drive's yellow icon on the desktop, and the first time you use any app it will have a couple seconds "verifying photoshop cc2018" or whatever, then future uses will load normal but fast.
Its a long story, and no YT has explained it for Catalina yet, shout if you need the steps.
When I go to the app store to download Catalina it simply opens up preferences and asks If I want to download it. Any Idea what I do next as the steps are different now. I am trying to create a bootable macOS onto an external SSD for my late 2013 iMac.
how do i use the hdd for storage after i installed the ssd?
it will automatically apper after u boot through ssd
Hi Bhanu, I was able to install and use Mojave on my iMac's external hard drive... all of a sudden I cannot boot from the hard drive anymore
Could I do this with High Sierra and a 2011 imac??
Thank you for sharing this video... I installed Mojave on an external 1TB SSD and it said intallation successful, created all the required folders/subfolders on the external SSD but it didnt go through the setup (language, location, etc) ?! can you direct me, please? Thanks...
Does this work the same with Catalina?
That mohave seems to have lost your items I don’t want to loose final cut etc
If I try use this to boot Mac will it loose my stuff ????
CADS not exactly, Macs work with main drives, the Samsung T5 he installed was empty, his info is on his main disk, he installed Mojave in the Samsung T5 so the Mojave he ran was on T5, but if he starts his Mac with his normal disk his computer will go back to normal, he can actually clone his disk on the T5 and make it his main disk.
you can migrate your stuff with the Migration tool. Whether that app is supported on Catalina is another question.
If you boot up the os with the ssd will you still have all your data , pictures , music , software there ?
I used a time machine and the whole system was cloned to the new external SSD.
If I install the Mac OS on the external SSD, would I be able to utilise the internal HD's storage at the same time the OS is running on the external? Or would the system not recognise the internal drive as a storage unit at that point?
Karan Singh hey dude watch minute 5:25 on the video , there is the answer, regards!!
WICH SSD ITS THE BEST FOR MAC LATE 2012
Extremely good video but you didn’t answer where you can get the new operating system from and do you have to download it before putting it onto the new drive I was wondering if you could answer this and maybe put a link to where you need to go to download the operating system
Thanks for sharing. Today I got a warning. It says this version of Mac OS 10.14 can’t be installed on the computer. Do you know what the problem might be?
I Got a question. I wanted to boot my mac with Windows a problem being that i did not have enough space according to boot assistent. I went out and bought an external ssd. I copied the iso and unpacked it on the sdd. I was then able to boot from the ssd. The problem being: my keyboard/mouse wont respond. I cant use boot assistent as it does not Work with external. How Can i solve this keyboard/mouse problem so that i Can actualy install Windows.
to be simple. can I do this with Catalina??
Im on Catalina, but I want to install high Sierra on my SSD but I can open High Sierra install as its older then Catalina. how do I get round this
Did you find out how to do it? I though maybe formatting the external SSD then set the Imac to boot from that external and then install high Sierra or mojave to that?
did you figure it out?
I’m afraid not guys sorry :( gave up
I always get this message after completing.4:00
mac os could not verify
can I do that when I have Catalina on my Mac?
Yes you can, but when you try you'll probably get this message: "This copy of the “Install macOS” application is too old to be opened on this version of macOS". So I copied the Mojave Install App to a USB stick (16gb). Then rebooted the iMac with the USB plugged in and holding down the 'Option' key. I selected the USB and started the installation process. When it asked on which disk to install, I plugged in my External SSD and chose it. Very easy! Works great!!
Now mu Macintosh is running out of space .. and i wanna download huge app like xcode and so on .. does this method help me out? To download a lot of apps without running out memory anymore ?
Will this work with the ssd already connected internally?
I want to make ssd the new boot drive, and keep the old hd for extra storage.
José Nadesan yes
I have done this with my iMac late 2013. The hard drive went very very slow. Even Apple support can't do anything. I thought my Mac have a virus. Bought a Samsung 1TB SSD and tried it as an external boot drive at first. It worked. That's the time I decided to replace my internal HDD and upgrade my RAM for $200 Canadian.
Was it hard to replace the internal drive?
Craig Beckta seek professional to do the job. But you can find it on TH-cam if you want to
Craig Beckta buying the tools that you need will cost the same thing if professionals do it for you
OK, thanks
Need your help .. my mac is late 2009!.. it runs great although slow editing video on Final Cut Pro .... I’ve updated the ram ... if I get this will it let me play video on final cut pro
Probably not, you may need a faster cpu and better graphics.
Craig Beckta it uploads 4K from my lumix g7 Panasonic to the late imac 2009 ...
I’m thinking that If I get the T5 and boot it from that I should improve the speed to edit it possibly?
Probably not my 2014 iMac struggles with 4K sometimes.
Great video, thank you
Thank you bro
No problem
After i do this could i still unplugged external ssd and plug to other computers to transfer files back and forth?
Hey, not 100 percent sure, but generally when you format a drive to work as a boot drive, like we did in this tutorial, it generally suits that lone purpose. So if I were you I wouldn't unplug it and use it elsewhere unless you're pretty good with computers to start with.
There isn't much harm in unplugging the drive when the mac is off, and trying to see if it even opens on a windows computer though, I think.
@@eLaine33 ok thank you!
Hello Craig, what could happen if i accidentally unplugged the ssd while mounted?
just will crash and bott down
What if my 2012 late imac does not recognize ssd t5 when booting up.. help anyone!
hi can you make a tutorial for mac os catalina?
You have to select 'APFS' from the format dropdown part at @3:00 and you need to select 'Macintosh HD' not 'Macintosh HD - Data' (new Catalina splits it up into two logical volumes). Download Carbon Copy and use the free trial, it will show you a help page at startup about these new details for Catalina. Did it today with same Samsung T5 1TB, made a bootable clone with no issues.
If I do this do I lose any settings I have made to how PS displays. Spent a lot of time getting PS to display the items I want together with shortcuts and 3rd party software plugins and don't wish to lose.
Yes, you would have to install Photoshop on the new hard drive.
I have a Samsung T7 drive and When I go to erase the drive I don’t get the scheme drop down menu. So I can’t select the GUID partition map :( what is wrong?
Extended journal
Why not format in AFPS for SSD's? it's recommended for SSD's...
Cloned my hard drive to an ssd and when I try boot it up I get a circle with a line through it, I have a WD BLUE SSD, it’s compatible with my MacBook Pro late 2011
Why mac so extended journaled
Hey craig. Is it slower to have a SSD via USB versus installing it physically?
If you do this - run MacOS off an external SSD - do you lose all the settings you had created on MacOS on the internal HDD?
Yes, its a new os now!
Sounds like Toby from The Office
One thing I have a question about - I know this is an old video so hopefully someone sees this haha! But now when I airdrop from one device to this Mac, it is showing two iMacs but I only have the one. It’s bugging me and I’ve even wiped the internal drive! The one device has the name of the actual iMac, and the other device has the name of the iMac before I did this upgrade 🤦🏻♀️ Did this happen to anyone else
Speed on the Mac will be based on the speed of USB connection !! The fastest for USB 3 on an old Mac will be only 480 bytes write n read !! The le Mac has no other connection options
I successfully installed Monterey on ssd T5 ! But later on I have stupidly installed the Samsung software and now I have problem to boot !
Greetings from another Canuck. I've got High Sierra on a 500Gb SSD (which I've just installed) and after rebooting, I get the 'macOS Utilities screen, offering me choices of Restore From Time Machine Backup, Install macOS, Get Help Online and Disk Utility. I'm not being shown the regular route to setup. Thoughts? (I'm on a late-2012 iMac.)
when i do it it doesnt let me edit the scheme - i have the same exact external ssd as you.
Hi, I have:
MacBook Pro (13-inch, Mid 2012)
2.5 GHz Intel Core i5
4 GB 1600 MHz DDR3
Intel HD Graphics 4000 1536 MB
Is it 500gb ssd drive enough? or would it be better to get a 1tb instead? what do you think the minimum is to make a good difference? i currently use mojave os, thanks
Did this with my Mac , when it sleeps for a while it restarts
This is good. The devil is in the details tho. If you want your own system, not fresh install (it would rake me 3+ days to reinstall my music studio) I’d use Carbon Copy Cloner to make an image drive. It will partition correctly and boot from anywhere. Worth every penny for any kind of backup or copy. The other devil is hardware. Which enclosure? SSD to USD3 port or TB2? Not really any option I can see using the much faster TB2 w/o purchasing a breakout I/O for $200+ from OWC, then another $300+ for enclosure and drive (they have amazing NVMe if you want top speed and future reuse) IMO if you’re solution is $500+, you might as well invest in a newer iMac. Keeping a 2012-2017 going is risky with those stuck & fragile screens. Considering the sell price of $2017, you won’t lose much on a 2020 model used.
for you it showed OPEN, for me it showed DOWNLOAD
:/ didnt quite work for me
HOW DO I GET MY OLD APPLICATIONS FROM MY INTERNAL DRIVE TO MY NEW EXTERNAL DRIVE :-(
no one use the time machine app
easy, during setup, there's an option if you want to transfer stuff from "another Mac" or time machine, etc.. click on another Mac and choose the internal drive, then follow the directions on screen.