[HN Gopher] External boot disks still don't work properly with M... ___________________________________________________________________ External boot disks still don't work properly with M1 Macs Author : zdw Score : 181 points Date : 2021-02-10 15:40 UTC (2 days ago) (HTM) web link (eclecticlight.co) (TXT) w3m dump (eclecticlight.co) | evgen wrote: | Some options/ides from the team that does the SuperDuper backup | and disk dupe tool: | https://www.shirtpocket.com/blog/index.php/shadedgrey/thats_... | louwrentius wrote: | Even on an Intel Mini, USB-C boot takes much longer than internal | boot, seemingly due to Apple shenanigans. | | I have worked with External SSDs on Macs for years. Partially | because to circumvent the Apple Price Tax. | | But also to just treat storage as something easy to swap. | cletus wrote: | I don't use an external boot disk but I certainly understand why | people do. And yeah this needs to be fixed. | | But is anyone else shocked at how well the transition to ARM has | gone for Apple? Because I am. I figured this would be something I | would avoid as long as possible but honestly I'd probably be | happy with this year's MBP M1 refresh. | whatthesmack wrote: | > But is anyone else shocked at how well the transition to ARM | has gone for Apple? | | I totally get why some folks would want to wait for the next- | gen of these initial machines, but I'm not surprised at how | well it's gone. | | I chose to buy the initial M1 MacBook Air model right-off-the- | bat. The reason for this is that I went through the last two | Mac CPU arch transitions (68k -> PPC, PPC -> x86), and the way | Apple was able to handle those was truly impressive to me. Plus | I really needed more built-in storage ASAP :) | marcodiego wrote: | I think we're just a few steps away from having our own devices | in such a deeply locked state that boot disks will eventually | stop working on any sufficiently modern system. | marcan_42 wrote: | Apple expended a significant amount of resources designing this | bespoke boot chain so that it _isn 't_ locked down and does in | fact let users run completely unsigned operating systems (as | long as they have physical access and give consent with their | local user credentials). In fact, the design goes further, | allowing individual installed OSes to have different security | levels, thus allowing users to get the benefits of _both_ a | completely opened up OS install and a fully Apple-vetted, | secureboot install. | | They aren't going to backtrack on all that. That'd be silly. | | So please stop the FUD about Apple locking their devices down; | this is a Mac, not an iPhone :-) | my123 wrote: | It's just a set of bugs here, because of it using a redesigned | boot chain. The bugs will be fixed, just takes some time. | | Has nothing to do with trying to impose additional | restrictions. | marcodiego wrote: | > Has nothing to do with trying to impose additional | restrictions. | | For now, maybe. Consider the time when microsoft was | partially successful to boot-lock arm devices: https://www.so | ftwarefreedom.org/blog/2012/jan/12/microsoft-c... | | The old adage "do not assign to malice what can be properly | explained by stupidity" should not be blindly applied when it | involves powerful companies. | machello13 wrote: | IMO this line of thinking implies a lack of contextual | understanding about Apple's culture, strategy, and history. | Of course we can never predict 100% what big companies will | do, but we can be pretty sure Apple isn't interested in | doing that. | my123 wrote: | I can assure you here that it works on some drives but not | others because the boot chain on Apple Silicon Macs is | written from scratch, not using UEFI. | | Bugs are being worked out slowly, and there's no reason to | assume bad intentions here. (I have an Apple M1 MacBook | Air, and it boots from a Samsung T7 external SSD just fine) | bitcharmer wrote: | No, it's just Apple. The rest of the world doesn't do this | nonsense. | coldtea wrote: | The rest of the world doesn't care about security? | ant6n wrote: | I can boot all other arm devices with usb? Huh, maybe I'll | get an android phone and chromebook after all. | bitcharmer wrote: | Is there something in ARM that prevents booting from | external disks? What about Raspberry Pi? | ant6n wrote: | Nah. Just that most manufacturers sell the devices in | such a deeply locked state that boot disks are not | supported. | | Though ARM appears to be missing an open-spec BIOS/Boot | standard like x86 has. | floatboth wrote: | SBSA-compliant systems boot with UEFI+ACPI. Server | customers care about standardization, so boot was made | "boring" and basically identical to x86. | | It's just the embedded junk (which includes Apple) that | doesn't care. Apple has vertical integration, they only | care about the full experience including their own OS. | Embedded SoC vendors only care about having some "BSP" | fork of Linux because that is enough to make a crappy | device with it. There's just, unfortunately, zero | motivation for these vendors to embrace standards. | breakingcups wrote: | Through stupidity _and_ malice. | michelb wrote: | This may be fine for the current M1 macs, since they are most | likely not used by professionals or people that will do | potentially installation damaging things, so a trip to the Apple | Store will suffice. But this better work once the pro machines | come out. It's already hard to recover data from the newer mac's | when your system installation has issues, not being able to boot | from another drive is going to suck. | rowanG077 wrote: | The pro machines are allready out. You can buy a Macbook pro M1 | right now. | coldtea wrote: | Parent doesn't mean machines with "Pro" in their branding | name, they mean the models actually used by technical/cpu- | demanding pros in video/graphic design/audio/3d/etc. (non | technical/cpu-demanding professionals, e.g. some office | working just needing web and excel, can use Macbook Air or | whatever too). | | And those aren't out yet, those would be the 16 MBP, the Mac | Pro, the iMac and iMac Pro, and so on. | Toutouxc wrote: | You can also use the "MacBook Air or whatever" to compile | code just as fast [1] as the 16" MBP. | | If that isn't a cpu-demanding task then I don't know what | is. | | (not trying to be rude, just that the Air is currently a | very capable and pro-tier machine) | | [1] https://www.macrumors.com/2020/11/17/apple- | silicon-m1-compil... | sudosysgen wrote: | Those kinds of professionals won't be comparing it to | other MacBooks, but to other computers of the same form | factor. The M1 Macs still aren't the leader in multicore | performance or multicore performance per watt. | | If you're a programmer that mostly relies on multicore | performance, the current M1 Macs aren't the gold | standard. Unless of course you are drawn to the OS or | something else. | coldtea wrote: | > _Those kinds of professionals won 't be comparing it to | other MacBooks, but to other computers of the same form | factor._ | | Not really, since most of those kinds of professionals | concerned already used Intel Macbooks. It's not like | they're gonna win the "build some tower yourself crowd". | sudosysgen wrote: | The new AMD Ryzen 5000 series laptops are faster | multicore than the M1 MacBooks. I'm not comparing towers, | a powerful desktop computer would absolutely murder an M1 | MacBook in multicore, it wouldn't even be close. | rowanG077 wrote: | Can you send me a link of a ryzen 5000 laptop with the | same form factor? All of them I know are either >14 | inches or are much thicker. | sudosysgen wrote: | Sure, if you're looking for the form-factor of a MacBook | Air, there are quite a few. For example, the Lenovo 14p | lineup, but there are many others. | | Depending on where you live, there may be some supply | issues, especially if you are looking for a model with an | NVidia 3000 series GPU. | rowanG077 wrote: | That's not really the same form factor. It's at least 20% | heavier and much more thick and larger. The same form | factor would be something like a Dell XPS 13 or surface | pro. But those are not offered with Ryzen CPUs. | sudosysgen wrote: | It is less than 10% heavier (1.4kg vs 1.29kg) and is | 0.9mm thicker. It is about 22mm wider and 6mm deeper, | with a screen 18mm larger in diagonal. | | Unless you're _really_ being pedantic the two are of the | same form factor. Maybe you are comparing the Intel | ThinkBook 14? That one is significantly heavier and a bit | thicker. | | If an increase in size of around 5% is too much, there | are smaller laptops with the same processor family. | [deleted] | rowanG077 wrote: | Which computer in the same form factor as the air is as | capable or better? All of them are throttling messes. AMD | is better then Intel but they still throttle. | sudosysgen wrote: | The high end Ryzen 5000 series processors even when | throttled to their lowest continuous speed still | outperform the M1 Macs in multicore. Having twice the | cores makes a huge difference. | rowanG077 wrote: | But why not call out the specific niche then? Pro does not | equal high demands. And audio has very different demands | then 3D work for example. In fact for audio work the M1 is | perfect hardware wise. | coldtea wrote: | There are pros that don't even need a computer. | | We're talking here about pros in the context of | "increased hardware demands". | | This has little to do with "Pro" in the product name or | not, nor with them being more professional than other | working people. | rowanG077 wrote: | The M1 Macbook pro is better then the 16 inch intel | Macbook pro. I'm not sure it gets more "pro" then this. | samatman wrote: | For Apple, the core of "pro" is audiovisual | professionals. | | I mean, really, it just means "the expensive one", as in | AirPods Pro, but sticking to Macs for a second: if your | job is video editing, or publishing, the bigger and nicer | screen is going to trump a faster processor and better | battery life. The (much) better speakers are also a big | plus. | | Smart users in that category are holding off new | purchases, if they possibly can, until the M2 | (presumably) 16" MBPs drop. Especially if the rumors hold | and it comes with an onboard SD card reader. | michelb wrote: | The M1 is fine for a lot of workloads but the current M1 | macs are not suitable for heavy work. Regarding niches; | video work, audio work, ML, compiling stuff larger than | simple projects, etc. The current M1 macs start to break | down on a lot of medium sized workloads due a lack of | RAM. So in my view, pro machine = >32gb ram, better gpu | performance, better multicore performance. | shawnz wrote: | You can simply boot to the internet-based recovery image and | reinstall or access your data from there, so there is no | concern about trashing your installation. | | Furthermore I don't see any reason to think that OP's issues | are to do with the hardware or that we will have to wait for | the next hardware model to have these issues resolved. It seems | like a simple OS-level software bug to me. | philistine wrote: | Oh i did trash my installation. I somehow didn't have | permissions to reinstall from internet recovery. I had to | plus another Mac and use Configurator to restore it. | shawnz wrote: | Try erasing all the existing volumes and create a new one | before starting the installation next time. That sounds | like the message you would get if you are trying to install | onto the recovery partition. | | EDIT: According to other posts there are in fact some | volumes on M1 Macs where if deleted, you will need to do a | DFU mode recovery. So perhaps don't actually delete all | existing volumes on an M1 | marcan_42 wrote: | The M1 boot process is _very_ different from Intel macs. In fact, | they do not support external boot disks at all, by design. This | is because the built-in firmware is extremely minimal, and does | not contain drivers for anything but the internal SSD. It doesn | 't even have a keyboard driver, or any kind of GUI other than | showing the Apple logo and "Entering startup options" text, and | some error screens. All of this is by design, for security - UEFI | is an enormous hairball of code, especially on Intel macs, and | almost impossible to secure properly for that reason. | | When you boot into the "Startup Options" menu, you are booting | into a special macOS partition in the internal SSD. M1 Macs use | macOS as the moral equivalent of the UEFI setup menu. That boot | picker that looks like the UEFI boot picker on Intel Macs? Yeah, | that's a full-screen app on macOS made to look similar. | | So how does external boot work? | | The "blessing" process done by the Startup Options screen | involves copying the entire macOS Preboot partition - iBoot2 OS | loader, Darwin kernel, auxiliary CPU/device firmwares, device | tree, and some additional stuff - to the internal SSD. It then | creates a local, signed boot policy that allows system firmware | to boot this macOS install. | | You aren't booting from an external disk. You are booting from | the internal SSD, with the root filesystem on the external disk. | | Additionally, the integration of the macOS user credentials with | the SEP means that you can't "just" take an install made on | another machine and use it on a separate one. It involves | importing user credentials into the local machine. This process | isn't implemented properly yet. | | As you might expect, this entire mechanism introduces a ton of | corner cases around updates, boot selection, etc., and it is | still very buggy and broken. The M1 launch was, when you look at | details such as this, very obviously rushed. | | Further reading for those interested: | | https://github.com/AsahiLinux/docs/wiki/M1-vs.-PC-Boot | https://github.com/AsahiLinux/docs/wiki/SW:Boot | https://github.com/AsahiLinux/docs/wiki/SW%3AStorage | | I'm actually eagerly waiting for Apple to fix this in future | system firmware releases, because my plan for installing Asahi | Linux for end users with a minimal amount of fuss is to abuse the | mechanism to adopt foreign macOS installations. This elides the | current need to have a completely wasted, 60+GB macOS install as | a dummy to actually launch Linux (we could clean it up and resize | it to get the space back, but it still makes for a very annoying | install process that I'm hoping to avoid). | | On the plus side, this dual-booting mechanism is very cleverly | designed to separately secure _different_ OSes, so you do not | need to downgrade security on your machine to install an unsigned | OS like Linux. It is a separate OS with a separate security | policy. You can keep your macOS install fully secure, and capable | of running iOS apps and other actions that require secureboot, | and install Linux (or another macOS with a custom kernel, kexts, | etc) in parallel, completely unintrusively. So kudos to Apple for | designing this whole thing, and for opening it up for us to use | :) | spijdar wrote: | > You aren't booting from an external disk. You are booting | from the internal SSD, with the root filesystem on the external | disk. | | So this means that the life of all M1 Macs is locked to the | life of the internal storage, as the (inevitable) drive failure | will render the whole computer unusable? | db48x wrote: | Except presumably for replacement with identical hardware. | marcan_42 wrote: | Yes. This is also the case for just about every other | computer out there, as chances are most PCs will end up | writing to UEFI variables on every boot for something or | other anyway, and those are stored in Flash memory too, which | has a finite endurance. That should be NOR flash, which | should have higher endurance than the NAND in SSDs - but we | also don't have any numbers on Apple's SSD endurance, so it | would be premature to speculate that this is going to be a | real problem in non-pathological use cases, and that the | machine won't in practice die first of other causes. | | Strictly speaking, the things can boot off of DFU (USB device | mode) too, but to make that useful for regular boot you need | to ask Apple, as currently you cannot boot a normal OS like | that as far as I know, only their signed restore bundles | (which is how you fix an M1 Mac if you wipe the SSD). | Wowfunhappy wrote: | Would it be possible to replace the internal SSD? Possibly | by setting some laxer security policy before the original | one dies? | plussed_reader wrote: | Very do-able on 2015 MacbookPros; can't imagine it's that | different on the M1 mobo. | tenacious_tuna wrote: | I am certain the internal SSD is soldered on--I believe | the whole M1 motherboard is an SOC. | spijdar wrote: | While technically speaking yes, eventually the firmware | flash will fail, I'm not sure bad UEFI variables will | actually prevent the system from booting, since the rest of | firmware should be fine. I've gotten systems to boot with | totally borked UEFI flash space. | | It is being nitpicky on my part, but I think we're reaching | the point where these machines could be expected to last | long enough for SSD weardown to become a real issue, even | with current flash tech. While this has theoretically been | a problem for the past 5 years now, it's a bit | disappointing to learn that now you can't use an external | drive in the event of the (irreplaceable) internal drive | failing. | floatboth wrote: | Raw EDK2 doesn't really need variables at all (in fact if | you use it as a coreboot payload, persistentce is not | implemented whatsoever, at least as of.. some time ago). | | Various crap bolted on by AMI and the OEMs... well, YMMV | - remember these laptops where someone did rm -rf with | mounted efivarfs on Linux and that _bricked_ it because | it just refused to boot without the variables :D | spijdar wrote: | I can believe that sadly :/ UEFI implementations range | from pretty good to absolute crap. My newest Dell has at | least been mostly decent, but an older Dell has so many | issues with the firmware, it's unbelievable. | | Not that it (worn out flash) is gonna be a problem in | practice, anyway. Neither will the M1's inability to boot | without the internal drive. Like Marcan said, it's not | really likely to die in realistic use within a pretty | long lifespan, I just find these sorts of | shortcomings/regressions ... disappointing. I get the | various reasons _why_ , it's just annoying. | marcan_42 wrote: | That depends on the implementation. For example, I've | seen many PCs exhibit a behavior where after a major | hardware change, usually CPU or RAM, the system boots, | shuts down, then boots again automatically. Presumably | after discovering the change it wrote some variables | describing it, then rebooted. Without the ability to | persist that information, I would expect it to loop | forever. | s_dev wrote: | External SSD is my default setup. I encourage it in the office as | well. Even my gaming machine is setup at home this way. When | popping over a mates I often just plug it out and stick it in to | their machine. | | It's very useful to be able to seperate data from the hardware. | If something is wrong with a machine I can just plug straight in | to another one. An SSD is much easier to carry than a laptop. | | The other problem with internal hard drives is when they get | stuck inside e.g. with MacBooks being sealed these days. External | SSDs can offer great flexibility and a trade off worth | considering. I can imagine people having security concerns etc. | | Disappointing to hear this about the new M1s. | | I recommend people interested in dipping their toes into Linux | Gaming trying this approach: | | https://www.easyuefi.com/wintousb/ | | https://rufus.ie/ | suyash wrote: | I've been using external disk as my main macOS too and the only | downside is the worry cable would snap out which it did a few | times when I moved laptop around and crashed everything. Other | than that, great way to upgrade my MBP with 1TB disk without | needing to buy new MBP. | sirius87 wrote: | Folks doing this need to be careful not to plug their disk into | a machine with a different OS. | | If the disk is plugged into an already booted system and the OS | doesn't recognize the filesystem format, I believe macOS and | Windows display a prompt to format the disk, which someone may | accidentally click. | reaperducer wrote: | _When popping over a mates I often just plug it out and stick | it in to their machine._ | | This was one of the touted technical uses for the first | (Firewire) iPod. Apple had a notion that people could carry an | iPod with them, and then boot any Mac from it and start working | right where they left off.[1] This is why Xserves had a | Firewire port on the front. | | [1] As a point of interest, this used to also exist in the | radio industry. Certain brands of control boards had | "personality cards" that could be tuned[2] to a particular D.J. | Then when the D.J. had to work from another studio, or | remotely, he could pop his personality card into the control | board and it would be preset to him. | | [2] And by "tuned," that meant tuned for his voice[3], to make | it sound the way he, or his program director, wanted it to | sound. | | [3] Even more interesting: Though these were circuit boards, | the tuning was done mechanically, and by hand. They were a | series of potentiometers covering different frequency ranges. | grishka wrote: | Oh the glorious offline-first software and hardware. I miss | it. Today this would've been handled through "the cloud", | requiring an account, a consent to tracking and analytics, a | monthly subscription, and a reliable high-speed internet | connection. | bangonkeyboard wrote: | "Home on iPod" wasn't a full bootable OS X, just the user's | Home directory. The feature was also canceled before release, | likely due to performance or durability limitations of the | iPod's micro hard drive. | dukeofdoom wrote: | I actually started doing this on my TVs. They have usb ports. I | bought a 16GB usb stick. And I just did youtub-dl to download a | bunch of workouts. And then use roku app on the TV to play | them. Saves time, and no youtube ads. | tinyhitman wrote: | What interface do you use (USB/eSATA, etc)? | | And you mention gaming setup, assuming windows, is this as | portable as you make it sound? No weird hardware-dependent | issues? | checkyoursudo wrote: | A couple of years ago I used to run a qemu Linux- | host/Windows-guest with PCI pass-through for GPU/SSD/etc. | | I could either boot the Windows install directly from the | SSD, or I could boot Linux and then run the same install in | qemu, without issue. | | I think there used to be more problems if you changed the | hardware too much from the original install. Like, if you | changed your motherboard (which the above would do of | course), then you couldn't run the same install. But I don't | think that's as much of a problem anymore? | | This was of course not an external SSD, so I don't know how | that changes things, if at all. | tinyhitman wrote: | Cool! I used to run a similar setup, when I started out I | passed through the hardware. But when things were running | smoothly I never booted back into windows natively (Wasn't | planning on this use-case). | | Nice to hear that it is possible. I feel like MS | essentially gave everyone the wrong idea about OSes dealing | with hardware changes. | 1vuio0pswjnm7 wrote: | "It's very useful to be able to seperate data from the | hardware." | | I have been doing this for decades, but I do it with USB | sticks, not SSDs, with NetBSD, not Windows. After boot I can | pull out the stick, freeing up the USB port for something else. | | I would be interested if I coul do the same with Windows but it | does not seem as straightforward. I know it is _possible_ but I | also know there is a good chance I would never get it to work. | | For example, the EasyUEFI link you provided suggests I need to | purchase software, the software only runs on Windows, Windows 7 | is not truly portable and the authors are not clued in to the | idea of separating data from hardware: | | "We recommend that you use Hasleo BitLocker Anywhere to encrypt | Windows To Go drive to keep your data safe. If you want to | upgrade Windows To Go to Windows 10 October 2020 Update | (Windows 10 20H2), please go to Windows To Go Upgrader." | | If only there was a way I could buy Windows on a stick instead | of having to buy a computer with pre-installed. | abc_lisper wrote: | >>> After boot I can pull out the stick, freeing up the USB | port for something else | | Does this mean the entire OS is loaded into memory? Is this a | NetBSD thing? | 1vuio0pswjnm7 wrote: | A "miniroot" is stored in the kernel, indeed the entire OS | is loaded into memory. Other BSDs and Linux have used, and | may still use, similar approaches in some cases. (For | example, BSD install media.) This is old hat but reliable. | What is amazing is that you still see people in 2021, when | most computers have ample amounts of memory, complaning | about "disk" issues, e.g., people try to use SD cards as a | "hard drive" for RPis. | bitwize wrote: | The Raspberry Pi foundation wants you to use Visual | Studio Code, which means you want to free up RAM. A file | system on SD that's mounted read only on boot might be a | good call, with /home on an external USB. | bitwize wrote: | It can be done with Linux or any OS that has a RAM-based | file system. And with machines coming with gigabytes of | memory, the installation supported by a RAM FS can be very | complete indeed. See Puppy Linux as an example of a distro | that can run from RAM. | shawnz wrote: | One of the major advantages of the M1 hardware is that the | storage controller for the SSD is directly integrated into the | CPU. You would be losing a big part of that performance | advantage by using an external OS volume. | chungus_khan wrote: | That isn't true. There wouldn't be a performance advantage to | that at all (the limiting factors in storage performance have | nothing to do with motherboard trace length, which has a | negligible impact on performance in general), and the M1 Macs | have fairly ordinary SSD performance. | space_rock wrote: | What about driver differences? Plug into a computer with Nvidia | card from a computer without... | gogopuppygogo wrote: | Mac installs support all compatible Mac hardware for that OS | version. | stefan_ wrote: | On x86, that's the reality. I recently went Intel CPU & AMD | GPU to AMD CPU & Nvidia GPU and just booted straight into my | old Windows system, no problem at all. | | But on anything ARM based? The whole ecosystem _doesn 't give | a fuck_. Everything is hyperspecific for _one_ platform | exactly. At one point, the Linux kernel had thousands of | board source files that specified exactly what hardware your | cursed ARM board had. Then they invented device tree but | frankly the situation has barely changed, don 't expect to | ever build a generic ARM image for anything. | floatboth wrote: | You are describing specifically "embedded junk" (which | includes the M1, sorry Apple) not literally "anything ARM | based". SBSA-compliant platforms boot with UEFI+ACPI, using | fully generic DSDT descriptions for PCIe (ECAM) and USB | (XHCI). Speaking of GPUs, quite common for them to have | QEMU in firmware to run the x86-compiled EFI GOP driver | straight from the card's ROM and get video output before | the OS. | heavyset_go wrote: | It's cheaper to use custom ARM boards than it is to build | hardware that is SBSA-compliant, so consumers can expect | that most, if not all, of their ARM devices are not SBSA- | compliant. | cehrlich wrote: | I've never done this, so my concern might be a total non-issue. | | But how do you prevent the external SSD accidentally becoming | unplugged when you're doing this with a laptop? And what would | actually happen if that did occur? | bee_rider wrote: | I do this with a desktop, so the plug thing is a non-issue | really, but velcro is always an option if you don't care | about aesthetics. | sschueller wrote: | You could get something like this: | https://www.amazon.com/PCIe-NVMe-Mobile-External- | Drive/dp/B0... | aloer wrote: | I'm using a Samsung t5 via usb c on my MacBook and I'd | confidently say it's impossible to accidentally unplug. Not | sure if they made the plug like that on purpose or not but | it's definitely harder to remove than most other usb c plugs. | Even after more than a year of use | | What I've also seen some companies do is simply duct tape the | ssd to the laptop lid so they can walk around freely to | meeting rooms etc. | | At home I don't need that | reasonabl_human wrote: | Are you using it as an external boot drive or just as | additional storage? I've seen people use it for storage but | the parent comment is the first I've heard of potentially | using this as it's own OS.. | | Perhaps useful for dual-booting between personal and work | installations, considering MacBooks are sealed with one | drive? | aloer wrote: | Yeah exactly. I had to get my work MacBook repaired a few | times last year and since I'm working from home I just | mirrored the internal ssd to the t5 and booted from it on | my private Mac. | | This way I kept all the company settings and programs | working in a way that a time machine restore couldn't do. | | Works just the way you would expect from an internal ssd | and switching takes less than two minutes if necessary | ArchOversight wrote: | My companies MDM software would freak out if I did that. | So much of it is tied to the specific serial number of | the machine, as well as various baked in management of | push notifications for profile updates and the like being | tied to the device itself through Apple. | fpoling wrote: | The duct tape even does not look ugly when you work as it | is hidden behind the lid. | s_dev wrote: | It has happened to me -- you lose your work if it plugs out | but the drive is nearly always recoverable. Think of it as a | power outage. | adrian_b wrote: | It would be annoying, so you should better avoid that. | | Currently this is the weak point of using external bootable | SSD's. Because of that, I prefer the SSD's where the | Thunderbolt/USB cable is captive at the SSD end, as then | there are less connections that can be unplugged | accidentally. | | What I would like is to have in the laptop a CFexpress memory | card slot. | | The CFexpress memory cards have a PCIe electrical interface, | but they are mechanically identical with the older Sony XQD | cards, i.e. they are solid, rugged, not flimsy like the SDXC | memory cards, and they allow a very large number of | insertion/extraction cycles. | | If the laptops would have such card slots and if SSD's would | be available at a reasonable price in this format, then there | would not remain any reason to use non-removable SSD's. The | current CFexpress specification is based on PCIe 3.0, but | future versions can be updated to PCIe 4.0, like the internal | M.2 SSD slots of the latest laptops. | WesolyKubeczek wrote: | > If the laptops would have such card slots and if SSD's | would be available at a reasonable price in this format, | then there would not remain any reason to use non-removable | SSD's. | | A gentle reminder that you live in a world where SSDs on | some laptops are not removable at all, as are batteries. | And I'm leaving out minutiae like RAM. | | I'm just not seeing it as possible, how would you plan the | obsolescence of such devices? | toast0 wrote: | If it's easier to take your data drive from one laptop to | the next, it's no longer a end user problem when the | laptop needs to be thrown away at the end of each season. | | Yes, it's a shame you can't charge a 10x markup on the | storage the end user takes with them, but you can still | charge a 10x markup on the built in storage that's non- | removable and whose failure still blocks booting | (necessitating replacement of the whole thing, naturally) | dylan604 wrote: | We're well past having card slots on laptops in the Apple | realm. Rumor mill suggested possibly getting ports back on | a refreshed MacBookPro, but I am not holding my breath. | | For those not using Apple laptops, this might be a thing, | but I still doubt it's something manufactures will see a | lot of demand. | | My favorite has been the USB memory sticks that are the | same physical size as a bluetooth dongle. Since they are so | low profile, the chances of them coming unplugged are | pretty damn slim. The only draw back was they are pretty | small in capacity for trying to run an OS. | kop316 wrote: | You are describing something somewhat similar to this: | | https://www.crowdsupply.com/eoma68/micro- | desktop/updates/sta... | NathanielK wrote: | Not quite the same, but there's a product being developed | to adapt M.2 2242 NVMe drives to Expresscard, the other | hotpluggable PCIe standard. Most expresscard | implementations are only a since lane of PCIe v2, though | some of the new "P" series thinkpads support v3. Being a | single lane limits it compared CFexpress, but it's still a | bump over AHCI drives. | | Thinkpads up to 2013 also had a tool-less removable disk | drive that allows for hot swapping 2.5" SATA drives in | seconds while keeping them safe inside. This has been | abandoned with the obsolescence of optical drives though. | | > The CFexpress memory cards have a PCIe electrical | interface, but they are mechanically identical with the | older Sony XQD cards, i.e. they are solid, rugged, not | flimsy like the SDXC memory cards | | I agree, though with SDExpress becoming standard soon there | is a much realler possibility of future laptops having pcie | microsd slots, which might be good enough if you can find a | durable model. | | [1] https://thinkmods.store/products/expresscard-to-nvme- | adapter | awiesenhofer wrote: | Wow, I didnt even know these existed, thanks for | mentioning! Having these CFexpress cards as an option | instead or next to an SD card reader on laptops would be | great, for compact backups alone. But looking up details | and pricing I get a huge DAT vibe: excellent product, | limited users makes for expensive media and even less | adoption... | adrian_b wrote: | I agree. Already for many years I work almost only on external | (bootable) SSD's, for exactly the same reasons. | rock_artist wrote: | It works nicely if you don't use commercial apps that uses | device identifiers for activation. | | For such scenarios common by media creators external disks fail | to "just" plug. Some apps uses dongles or allow activating to | usb sticks. But still it's the exception. | mobilemidget wrote: | I can only assume your external disk is encrypted. Does that | work fine with booting in every machine you tried? | s_dev wrote: | I'd only bother to encrypt work machines -- I don't see why | it wouldn't work. My gaming setup -- I'd definitely not | bother. | | Not every machine is a guaranteed boot. It depends on MBR/GPT | etc and whether UEFI is disabled in the BIOS and other | configurations. However generally yes, they will. I've even | have setups where the SSD would would have | macOS/Windows/Linux. Much older motherboard pre-2012 | generally don't like this setup and it can be v.slow. | reasonabl_human wrote: | I have enough trouble dual-booting encrypted internal disks | on the same machine... any changes to the TPM, or say | booting one disk as a virtual machine from within the other | disks OS running natively, breaks all AAD and windows hello | authentication for me. Have to remove accounts and add them | back in from settings on windows 10. So I'd be quite | surprised if you've figured out a seamless way to boot an | encrypted disk on multiple machines... | | For example, with bitlocker, won't you need to enter the | recovery key when trying to boot from a new machine? And | have to sign out and back in to all relevant OS level | accounts? Even then I face authentication issues at times | | I really would like this to work seamlessly because moving | my internal SSD work disk to an external one would be far | safer than lugging it around inside my personal laptop all | the time. But the work disk has to be encrypted... | | Also, for hardware compatibility's sake, I'd think Linux | would be a far superior daily driver OS to 'multi-hardware | boot', considering relevant drivers are loaded from kernel | on boot rather than selectively pre-installed at OS | creation time for that one device, increasing plug and play | compatibility | fpoling wrote: | If you cannot have fully encrypted setup, then you can | consider encrypting at least most of data. | | At work due to remote work I cannot have fully encrypted | disc with Windows as I have to reboot remotely. So I left | a small enough partition for Windows, then created | another partition for my data that I encrypted with | strong password in Bitlocker. Then I symlinked my user | directory from C:\Users\UserName to a directory on D: and | created an extra account that I use after reboot to | unlock the encrypted disc with my data. | | This is not ideal, as Windows still may store my data on | C:\, but if one disables virtual memory, it is a | reasonably secure setup. | codys wrote: | Bitlocker can be configured (via manage-bde on the | cmdline, iirc) to use a passphrase and not use the TPM at | all. | reasonabl_human wrote: | Yeah for unlocking it within a host OS as a data disk, | not for booting from it... you can set auto unlock at | boot or a pin to boot, both of which use the TPM | | But try move a bootable bitlocker encrypted disk to new | hardware and you'll have to enter the recovery key | | I would really like to be wrong about this since it would | make my life much easier, but this understanding is based | on experience using multiple work machines with encrypted | boot drives every day :( | kryogen1c wrote: | > Yeah for unlocking it within a host OS as a data disk, | not for booting from it... | | this is not true. you can configure bitlocker with or | without TPMs. | | just google it. also the doc for the powershell command | talks about it in the establishing a key protector | section | | https://docs.microsoft.com/en- | us/powershell/module/bitlocker... | reasonabl_human wrote: | Oh wow, thank you! Should've known to head straight to | the docs instead of searching phrases online. Now to | spend the next day backing everything up and configuring | passphrase on boot... | protoman3000 wrote: | How do you boot Windows from USB without using third party | tools? | adrian_b wrote: | I have no idea. That is why I boot Linux from Thunderbolt or | USB and for the few Windows programs that I need I use either | Wine or a Windows VM. | userbinator wrote: | Look up WinPE. It's a lightweight "live CD/USB" version of | Windows that can be run entirely in RAM. A full "portable | Windows" install can be made from it. AFAIK all the third- | party tools do is automate the process of copying thousands | of system files and also act as a boot manager. | s_dev wrote: | WinToUSB is $50 but they allow you to do Windows Home and MBR | partitions for free. Rufus and Disk Utility for Linux/mac OS | Abishek_Muthian wrote: | I agree with your reasoning, especially since external SSD have | made it safer to carry physically as opposed to external HDD. | | But I mirror my internal NVMe SSD to external SSD as the | performance benefits of the former matters for me most of the | time and when needed bootable external SSD is available at | disposal. | | On macOS(not M1), Carbon Copy Cloner could create bootable | clones of the disks. But I'm out of macOS for good as changes | in Big Sur was too much for me, No offense to those who like | it; but it seemed like a _unicorn poop_ for me. Mojave was the | last version which preserved the essence of macOS IMHO. | | Now I'm back to Linux, hopefully btrfs(snapshots) + Timeshift | should recreate the same workflow. | valine wrote: | What about performance concerns? This sounds unbearably slow, | especially for someone accustomed to an NVME SSD. Not sure why | you would do that to yourself when cloud backups are an option. | adrian_b wrote: | I have been using for several years bootable Thunderbolt 3 | SSD's (on Linux). | | As those are equivalent with 4 PCIe 3.0 lanes, exactly like | the internal M.2 type M SSD slots, there is no performance | difference. | | Only the latest laptops with Tiger Lake, and the laptops with | Ryzen 5xxx to be introduced soon, have PCIe 4.0 M.2 slots, so | they will be able to have faster internal SSD's. | | I expect that the interconnection standards for external | devices will also continue to be improved, restoring parity | with the internal devices. | 1996 wrote: | > As those are equivalent with 4 PCIe 3.0 lanes | | Can you suggest some brands or models? | rz2k wrote: | Tom's Hardware seems to have a good list from January 1 | this year: https://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/best- | external-hard-driv... | gogopuppygogo wrote: | I tried this for a bit and noticed a huge performance drop. | Also noticed system freezing. | | I have an NVME 2.0TB drive in a USB-C enclosure and while | fast as an external this is not fast enough for booting and | running the dozen or so apps I keep open on my MBP. | | YMMV if you don't act as a power user. | lnanek2 wrote: | USB-C is super slow for this. You need to use Thunderbolt | NVME enclosures which can run the NVME at PCIe 3.0 x 4 | speed. I have 5 and RAID them together, which handily beats | the internal drive for speed by about 2x. | rfoo wrote: | > USB-C enclosure | | Keep in mind that USB-C != Thunderbolt 3. Yes, the latter | also physically connects to a USB-C form port, but it's | totally different. It's quite confusing and sad. | Hamuko wrote: | Was USB 4 gonna solve that or was that just me dreaming? | samatman wrote: | USB 4 is basically just Thunderbolt 3. Standards bodies | being what they are, it's more complicated than that, but | not by much. | netsharc wrote: | I think OP is talking about booting from an operating system | installed on the SSD, so I'm not sure how you can replace | that with "cloud backups". | | This sounds like an ad, but Sandisk has USB 3.2 flash drive | with NVMe inside, that according to this has up to 2 GB/s | read speed: https://www.amazon.com/SanDisk-Extreme-Portable- | External-SDS... | | I used the version 1, not NVMe, which can only do half that | speed, but I found it plenty fast. | fragmede wrote: | The technical details may differ between if my data is | stored on an SSD I'm accessing locally that I booted from, | vs if my data is stored in the cloud and I'm accessing it | via a web browser, but at the end of the day, I have access | to my files. The technical differences have many practical | ramifications (eg disk speed), but they are sufficiently | practically equivalent for many different use cases. We see | this with Chromebooks, where they will never be a full | replacement for every windows machine. There is a large | reason they've gained marketshare, however. | Dylan16807 wrote: | Both versions have NVMe inside them, actually. | | Not that that means anything for performance. NVMe just | means that it uses PCIe. | | Since the external port is USB, the internal use of NVMe is | actually a downside. The drive actually has two separate | circuit boards inside. One of them takes up space and power | just to convert NVMe to USB, and wouldn't exist in a better | design. | | https://i.imgur.com/6oPiOls.jpeg | | https://static.tweaktown.com/content/9/2/9280_08_sandisk- | ext... | lm28469 wrote: | Not so long ago SSDs didn't exists and people were using | their PC just fine. Today's high performance portable SSD are | miles ahead of the 10000rpm "fast" internal HDDs from back in | the days | oceanplexian wrote: | Software has bloated so much that users having an SSD is an | assumption. In fact a 2.5 SATA SSD is almost unbearable on | a modern machine for gaming, etc. since M2/NVME showed up. | cptskippy wrote: | No it isn't. My gaming PC has a 2TB SATA SSD that I store | all my games on and it's more than fine. | | Many people still use HDDs for game storage. | bee_rider wrote: | Kinda yeah, but just to set expectations -- if you want to | do an external hard drive as your main drive, just get a | thunderbolt drive. You might be able to massage a usable | experience out of USB, but thunderbolt is more or less | equivalent to an internal drive. | lupire wrote: | Computers run mostly from RAM and network. Unless you are | doing heavy disk work, nvme isn't a big deal. You can use | internal disk for temporary projects (compiling, video | editing) and then copy the snapshot to external at end of | day. | abrowne wrote: | Tell that to my work iMac with a HDD (not my choice) and a | new enough OS to require APFS. The only programs I | typically have open are Chrome and a music player, and it | freezes randomly, and Chrome is constantly waiting on | cache. | wheybags wrote: | Get a new employer... | | (Alternatively, if you really can't switch job, just buy | an ssd yourself) | abrowne wrote: | It's not that bad ... for what I'm doing, and I can do | something else when the computer stalls. I've thought | about an external TBT SSD, but doesn't seem worth it yet. | wheybags wrote: | I dunno man, ssds are pretty basic fare these days. They | have been standard for about a decade now. If an employer | refuses to give their developers ssds to work off, that's | a massive sign of disrespect IMO. | s_dev wrote: | I haven't noticed any performance degradation which is | counter intuitive because I really expected there to be one. | The Samsung T5 - T7s have been great in my experience. As for | the cloud .. well that has it's own challenges too. Currently | I'm trying to deGoogle myself and not doing a great job at | it. | | To address any conventional SSD vs NVMe SSDs performance gap | maybe consider and external NVMe SSD! | shawnz wrote: | The internal SSD in M1 Macs is actually superior even to | NVMe, since the controller is integrated directly into the | CPU. | mhh__ wrote: | [Citation needed] | vetinari wrote: | It has about the same performance as a normal PCIe 3.0 4x | NVMe drive. | buildbot wrote: | Even latency/at low queue depths? I'd expect it to have | stunning low latency compared to standard nvme honestly. | Dylan16807 wrote: | The analog parts are the slow parts. | | PCIe costs you less than a microsecond of latency. A good | SSD has 60 microseconds of latency. You're not going to | notice any difference from moving the controller. | [deleted] | NikolaNovak wrote: | I would love to do that; but Windows (yes yes I know:) seems to | intentionally block normal installation to external SSDs; and | all the workarounds I've tried so far have removed all the | convenience factors :| | intrasight wrote: | >When popping over a mates I often just plug it out and stick | it in to their machine. | | I would have assume that this would not work unless the | hardware was the same - due to device drivers, etc. | donut2d wrote: | Between Macs with macOS, this usually works fine (except with | older hardware that is not supported by the OS on the | external drive). Can't say for Windows. | heavyset_go wrote: | This might be the case for Windows, but with Linux, most | drivers are already distributed with the kernel and can be | dynamically loaded and unloaded depending on what hardware is | discovered while booting or afterwards. | bee_rider wrote: | It is pretty much just an issue of having the right graphics | drivers. | s_dev wrote: | I would have expected that as well but found in general the | process to be pretty seamless. | | I should probably mention I just stumbled on to this approach | rather than having forged it through clever thinking -- it | was originally due to a faulty motherboard burning out | internal HDDs consitently. So I HAD to opt for an external | drive and once I did the going back made little sense as it | just imposed restrictions I didn't want anymore. | sys_64738 wrote: | The M1 Mini is so small I can pack it and take it with me. | carlosrg wrote: | Slightly off-topic but I remember when system updates on Macs | were handled much better than for example Windows. I think that's | no longer the case: you can't download standalone updates (the | .pkg) anymore, and installing them feels like you're installing | the entire OS (even a minor release like 11.2.1 needs a several | gigabyte download and takes a long time to install). | CharlesW wrote: | I believe you're right that you can't download "delta" updates, | but standalone OS installers/updaters can be downloaded. | | Go to https://apps.apple.com/app/macos-big-sur/id1526878132 | (for Big Sur), click "Get", use Software Update to monitor the | download progress, then "rescue" the installer ("Install macOS | Big Sur.app") from Applications folder. | Toutouxc wrote: | Does anyone have any info on why the actual macOS installation | isn't bootable by both architectures? I seem to have lots of | different universal and x86_64 binaries and kexts on my M1 | machine. | | Also the kernel (that I thought was the actual kernel in use) in | /System/Library/Kernels reports "Mach-O 64-bit executable x86_64" | so I'm kinda confused about all this. | | I'd appreciate any pointers. | pram wrote: | I presume it's because the M1 variant doesn't use EFI to boot. | Toutouxc wrote: | That's what I'm expecting to learn, but I wonder what's going | on inside regarding the kernel and dylibs (and other stuff I | don't understand yet). | my123 wrote: | On your M1 machine, the used kernel is | /System/Library/Kernels/kernel.release.t8101. (for T810x | processors, A14 is T8101 and M1 is T8103, both share the same | kernel) | | The installation should be bootable by both, but not sure that | the flow to bless an install done on another machine to be | bootable on an other M1 one is done/fully functional yet. (on | M1 machines, you need to bless external volumes before booting | from them) | | Booting an install done on an M1 on an x86 Mac should work | already though. | marcan_42 wrote: | That's not the kernel. I mean, it's the kernel, but not the | kernel that the machine boots from. | | The built-in bootloader actually boots iBoot2 from | /System/Volumes/Preboot/(UUID)/boot/(long | hash)/usr/standalone/firmware/iBoot.img4, and that then loads | the Darwin kernel from | /System/Volumes/Preboot/(UUID)/boot/(long hash)/System/Librar | y/Caches/com.apple.kernelcaches/kernelcache. | | However, the system firmware can only boot this from the | internal SSD, not from any external storage. When you choose | an external disk to boot from (the "bless" thing), those | files get copied to the internal SSD, and it boots from that | instead. | comex wrote: | But note that Intel Macs use a similar but completely | different system, also redone in Big Sur, with a set of | "kext collection" files in a different location and format. | Because that makes so much sense. | mrkstu wrote: | So you literally cannot boot an M1 Mac with a nonfunctional | internal drive, even if you're successfully 'booting' from | an external drive before it fails? The SSD is integral to | its functioning? | my123 wrote: | Yes. | mrkstu wrote: | Good to know- glad I got a terabyte drive then, since it | will less likely suffer a wear failure in its usable | lifetime, but sad that a wear part guarantees a finite | lifetime for a machine with no moving parts. | my123 wrote: | That's the immutable kernelcache shipped by the machine, | and isn't only the kernel but also includes the kexts. | | You can then rebuild your own kernel cache from | /System/Library/Extensions and /System/Library/Kernels. | (eventually with a recompiled kernel) | sdfhbdf wrote: | I don't see it in mentioned in the article but could be a driver | issue for the enclosures of theses disks. Had that happen when I | was using shitty cables for an SSD to my Raspberry. | | Otherwise it's entirely possible it's for security reasons and | somehow related to the secure enclave stuff. | | But I might way out of my depth here. | | What is the use case for using an external boot disk with a mac? | yoz-y wrote: | One thing that comes to mind is that as a developer you don't | have to pollute your main partition with a beta if you can | install it on an external drive. | londons_explore wrote: | SSD's support namespacing allowing exactly this... | gtufano wrote: | AFS has containers to install betas on the same partition, | the main partition is not polluted (and the additional | volume(s) can be removed at will). cfr. | https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT208891 | | I'm not saying that it's "normal" not to be able to boot from | external devices, I'm just answering your point | minimaul wrote: | This is quite risky - previous beta updates (such as Big | Sur) did break installing updates on older OS releases in | the same APFS container, and some beta updates have in the | past done incompatible APFS updates that broke the ability | to boot old OSes. | | Safer to use a separate disk or partition. | londons_explore wrote: | The fact the errors occur before the "reboot" part of the | installation tells me it isn't a driver issue. The "unable to | set startup disk, SDErrorDomain 104" suggests the error is a | check in firmware preventing this. | | It's probably simply unimplemented, and rather than try anyway | there is a check somewhere in the firmware that the drive being | marked bootable meets some criteria. Clearly the internal drive | meets that, and _some_ external drives do. Running a tracer on | the commands sent to the drive would likely identify it. | LocalH wrote: | I don't even think it should have to be justified. Booting from | external media is one of the most basic computer maintenance | tools we have. It's not like the computing industry has been | giving two shits about user freedom anyway. The cynic in me | wants to say that the insecurity of modern computing was | intentional, so as to eventually require such user-hostile | lockdowns. However, the rationalist in me understands that it | most likely just ended up happening this way by chance. Either | way, it's unfortunate that everything is being locked down more | and more in the name of security. At the very least, such | walled gardens should be _opt out_. | [deleted] | jlokier wrote: | - Booting to recover your data when the system has trashed | itself, typically due to a failed software update, to the point | that it won't boot off the internal drive but the drive is | still working. This sort of thing has been seen with older MBs. | | - Continuing to be able to use your laptop when the internal | drive has failed. Very helpful if you can't afford a | replacement, or if you need to carry on without waiting for a | replacement and you have a recent backup. | | - Booting older versions of MacOS (that don't know about APFS, | or if you have reason not to trust APFS partitioning) for | testing, compiling for an older target, running software that | doesn't run on the current version of MacOS, or other reasons. | | (But old MacOS won't work with the M1 so that doesn't matter at | the moment.) | simonh wrote: | * Recovery of the machine from an external clone disk in case | of disk failure. | | * Booing up a disk from another machine where it's suffered a | non-disk failure. | | * Because I want to. | shawnz wrote: | You could use internet recovery mode for the first use cases. | simonh wrote: | That will boot the OS, but not with a copy of your files | from the dead disk. | LocalH wrote: | The last reason you listed is probably the most important, as | well. | parsimo2010 wrote: | I once worked with a team that worked three 8 hour shifts and | flexible seating, so there were about 3 times as many workers | as there were desks and each team member might be sitting at | several possible computers. Rather than worry about syncing | personal files and profiles across a network, each team member | had their own external drive that they used to boot the Mac | mini wherever they were sitting. There may have been better | solutions for that particular team, but this certainly worked | and I'd hate to throw away the option for doing something like | that in the future. | | And I've booted Linux from an external drive a zillion times on | a PC. It's fairly handy to have the option. | londons_explore wrote: | Performance kinda sucks unless you pay a lot of attention to | buying the right model of drive. Most drives are simply | designed for storing a few TB's of photos and videos. As soon | as you are doing low latency paging to the drive and millions | of flush() operations, things bog down pretty badly, even on | a modern SSD. | | Simple things like USB not having any decent way to do shared | memory with the host are a big part of it... | Spooky23 wrote: | That's really cool. | | I used to support a similar need with an enterprise tool that | cost exponentially more to implement and support. | aloer wrote: | OT: one of the nice little things with MacBooks is that you have | a disk cloning thing built in. It takes literally one step and | half an hour to clone my internal 512gb ssd to external Samsung | t5 and have it booted up. No problems whatsoever and I've been | successfully copying the same system back and forth about 10 | times last year | | One thing I do recommend though: remove airpods from the Apple | account before cloning and pair again once the same system is | running on new hardware. Sometimes this causes problems ___________________________________________________________________ (page generated 2021-02-12 23:01 UTC)