external boot drive

I'm stumped by this problem with a friends iMac (Big Sur on a Retina 5K, 27", Late 2014 with a 2TB fusion drive and the R9 M290X 2GB GPU). He has constant, random freezing, buffering and crashes so I assumed the fusion drive was on it's way out so I backed up the drive using Superduper (latest...

The SATA flex cable of my former daily driver died so instead of replacing it and potentially damaging something else in the system, I removed the upgraded internal SSD and placed it in an external USB enclosure. Everything seems fine with my Mac Mini except that the SSD is recognized as a...

I have a Late 2014 27" (3.5 i5). The fusion drive is having issues. I use this machine in my law office, and it's mission critical for my workflow. I don't want to buy a new intel iMac, and I'm far from being comfortable with buying a M1 iMac or Mac Mini. So, I need to squeeze 2-3 more years out...

I was wondering if someone could help me out. I am running Catalina but would like to install an older version os (sierra or el capitan) on an external and be able to boot from it. i have looked up some videos but I'm still having trouble. Any help would be really appreciated.

Hello, I recently purchased an external SSD so I can install Boot Camp on it and play my Windows games. I can't install Boot Camp on my Macbook because there is not enough space. I've seen some guides on how to do this and thought it should be a smooth sail, oh boy was I wrong... I followed...

Hello all, I recently bought a 500 GB Samsung 860 EVO 2.5” form factor SSD to swap it out with the primary HDD in a mid 2011 21.5” iMac. Problem is, the computer doesn’t boot (shows a prohibitory sign) whenever the 860 is inside the chassis and connected to the motherboard through SATA, however...

Hello, I have a 2018 macbook pro 13" w/ core i5, 16gb RAM, and am running bootcamp on it. I have my windows 10 home installed on an external samsung 1tb t5 SSD, which is a thunderbolt 3 capable drive. I also run an external gtx 1080 for rendering and gaming. The issue I am experiencing is...

Greetings, I've retired my Mac Pro 3,1. And now the time has come to retire my Mac Pro 4,1 (flashed to 5,1). Doh. But behold, I'm getting a Mac mini 2018 (i7). Yay. Grabbing minimum amount of RAM so I can max it out much cheaper by myself. I'm also getting an eGPU. Meanwhile I'm probably making...

Hi, I know there are myriad threads on here about the benefits / drawbacks of different methods of running Windows 10 on a Mac but very few of them relate to the newest models so I’m hoping someone can help. I’m considering purchasing a new MacBook Air to update from my incredibly old Mac...

Hello guys! Thank you very much for this amazing forum! I have an iMac (27-inch, Late 2013) with USB 3.0 (link for specs below). I thought that I could install MacOS and Linux on an external and fast SSD. I would avoid to open the iMac, and honestly I was getting impatience because I cannot...

I recently sought the advice of these forums on the best hardware to enable my 2012 iMac to boot from an external SSD. I settled on a 1tb SSD and a USB3 enclosure. Some background info on my current system: OS: High Sierra 10.13.6 HD: 1tb HDD (Mac OS Extended - Journaled) I've consolidated...

Hi All, I'm looking to buy an external SSD and make it bootable for my late 2015 iMac. I'm open to any suggestions, but I'm thinking of this as a single dedicated drive (I don't need multidrive units). It's a 5k display, with USB 3 and Thunderbolt 2 ports. I'm looking for the fastest option...

Hi, I have a new 2017 iMac 27" 5K 3.5Ghz 1TB Fusion drive. I added a 500GB M.2 SSD in a USB-C to USB-C External Housing as the the boot drive. It's certainly made a difference in performance. However, the Fusion Drive has a Windows 10 partition (Boot Camp) and 750GB of free space. I am just...

Hi, I have a 21.5”, Mid 2011 iMac running High Sierra. I would like to lengthen the life of the machine, so I was thinking of hooking up an external SSD to its thunderbolt 1 port. Ideally this external SSD would also be bus-powered. The plan is to put the OS and all my apps onto this SSD (if...

Heeelp :-) I'm booting from an external SSD over thunderbolt ... (the internal SSD was fried a long time ago). As of such the drive right now is formated to HFS+ NOT APFS ... It runs amayzingly with High Sierra this way ... but obviously I want to upgrade to Mojave. Is there any ways I...

I bought a new SSD and did a clean install of Windows on it and I'm trying to transfer my data now. I've tried AOMEI Backupper and EaseUS Todo Backup, but I could only select the new SSD as the source. Can anyone here help me with this?

Need help. Mac mini 2011, internal HD failed, have been running it with external hd with Mac OSX loaded on it, has been running great but last 2 days I've tried to start up with no success. Stays on gray apple page, and what used to be a fast progression bar is now very slow to progress, and...

I own a 2012 macbook pro and recently got a 2017 macbook pro from my family with only 128G hard drive. I am planning to take my old macbook's 500G SSD hard drive and always boot from there on the new 2017 macbook. I'd be using this enclosure/cable. Is this a good idea? Would I be running into...

AS per the title, anyone got any recommendations as to decent external enclosures for a 250GB SSD that I am planning to use on my iMac as a boot drive? I was very surprised to see that the enclosure can have a significant impact on the transfer speeds as I thought it would be simply a SATA and...

Is there any way of creating one external SSD drive, for external booting of BOTH and Mac Pro & a MacBook Pro? (at different time) - Both currently on High Sierra.