My Macbook Air M1 has only 256 GB internal. My intent had been to keep most of my data on an external drive, but I find that the internal is still getting too full. (One reason is that Mac Mail insists on keeping its data on the boot drive, and I have over 70 GB of archived mail, don't ask! Though I'm thinking of switching to Outlook to alleviate this, but getting my existing Mail archive into Outlook seems non-trivial. But that's another question. And regardless, other apps like to keep lots of things on the boot drive as well.)
Anyway, I was thinking that one solution would be to boot from an external drive. I know the externals aren't quite as fast, but I wonder how much difference it will make... and how noticeable the difference is between a USB 3.1 vs. Thunderbolt external for this purpose.
The drives I am looking at are the Fantom Extreme 2TB Thunderbolt SSD and the Crucial X9 Pro 4TB USB SSD (technically a USB 3.2, but I think the Macbook Air M1's ports are only 3.1 so it will function as a 3.1). Obviously, specs favor the TB drive, but I wonder how much real-world difference there is. The reason I'd prefer to use the Crucial is that it is much smaller and lighter. I would feel comfortable attaching it to the back of the Macboook lid, maintaining the full portability of the Macbook, whereas the thunderbolt drive, as compact as it is, seems like it might still be too big and heavy to comfortably use that way.
Has anyone run their M1s off these kinds of external drives, who can report their experiences?
Related: I know virtual memory creates a swap file on the boot drive. Is there any way to tell the Mac to use its internal drive for the swap file even if I'm booting from an external (e.g. a terminal command)? (BTW, my Macbook has 16 GB RAM in it, so at least it shouldn't be accessing the swap file as much as it would if it only had the standard 8 GB.)
Anyway, I was thinking that one solution would be to boot from an external drive. I know the externals aren't quite as fast, but I wonder how much difference it will make... and how noticeable the difference is between a USB 3.1 vs. Thunderbolt external for this purpose.
The drives I am looking at are the Fantom Extreme 2TB Thunderbolt SSD and the Crucial X9 Pro 4TB USB SSD (technically a USB 3.2, but I think the Macbook Air M1's ports are only 3.1 so it will function as a 3.1). Obviously, specs favor the TB drive, but I wonder how much real-world difference there is. The reason I'd prefer to use the Crucial is that it is much smaller and lighter. I would feel comfortable attaching it to the back of the Macboook lid, maintaining the full portability of the Macbook, whereas the thunderbolt drive, as compact as it is, seems like it might still be too big and heavy to comfortably use that way.
Has anyone run their M1s off these kinds of external drives, who can report their experiences?
Related: I know virtual memory creates a swap file on the boot drive. Is there any way to tell the Mac to use its internal drive for the swap file even if I'm booting from an external (e.g. a terminal command)? (BTW, my Macbook has 16 GB RAM in it, so at least it shouldn't be accessing the swap file as much as it would if it only had the standard 8 GB.)
