I ADDED A 4 terabyte hard drive and I want to make it my main hard drive how do I
do that I'm new to Macs
do that I'm new to Macs
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ADDING HARD DRIVE
- Thread starter Robert Carter
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Can you please provide more information, such as:
- Which Mac you're using—is it Intel or Apple Silicon
- Is the drive internal or external
- What macOS do you want to install on the drive
Another question:
Is that new 4TB drive a spinning hard drive, or a solid-state drive (SSD)?
If it is a hard drive, you will be disappointed with the speed, if you use it for the boot drive.
Is that new 4TB drive a spinning hard drive, or a solid-state drive (SSD)?
If it is a hard drive, you will be disappointed with the speed, if you use it for the boot drive.
Right... and of course I'm saying that as someone who boots off a spinning drive (just because of its large capacity). But yes, an SSD is much preferred; although booting off a spinner will work, it definitely won't be a good experience. Literally the ONLY reason why I boot off a spinner is because of its large capacity (and I store a LOT of data), that's it.
Yeah... but I can't offload the Logic sounds without first installing them on the internal drive—that's my problem... And my Resolve database, but that's pretty small; the Logic sounds are like 73 GB.
Anyway, this isn't about me, this is about the OP, who still has yet to explain their situation.
Monterey. And in fact, tonight, I just installed Catalina on a separate APFS volume (same drive) for testing purposes, which boots incredibly quickly!
OP:
Which Mac do you have?
What year was it made?
What kind of drive is in it now (size and type)?
You DO NOT want to use a platter-based drive to boot and run a modern Mac.
In fact, the most recent Mac OS's may not even boot from a platter-based drive.
Which Mac do you have?
What year was it made?
What kind of drive is in it now (size and type)?
You DO NOT want to use a platter-based drive to boot and run a modern Mac.
In fact, the most recent Mac OS's may not even boot from a platter-based drive.
the reason I'm trying to boot off of another drive is that the Mac mini only has 16 gig and it's full and keeps freezing I don't know how to clear some space on the drive can you help me?
how do I telll if my HD is platter based?
"I ADDED A 4 terabyte hard drive and I want to make it my main hard drive how do I do that I'm new to Macs"
1. Use disk utility to format/erase the HDD.
- if you're using OS 13 "High Sierra" or earlier, format to "Mac OS extended with journaling enabled, GUID partition format"
- if you're using OS 14 "Mojave" or later, format to "APFS, GUID partition format".
2. Download SuperDuper from here:
SuperDuper is VERY easy to use. It will clone the contents of your current boot drive to the NEW HDD.
3. When done, open the "startup disk" preference pane. Click the lock and enter your password. Then click the HDD to designate it as the new boot drive.
4. Reboot. That should be all you need to do.
1. Use disk utility to format/erase the HDD.
- if you're using OS 13 "High Sierra" or earlier, format to "Mac OS extended with journaling enabled, GUID partition format"
- if you're using OS 14 "Mojave" or later, format to "APFS, GUID partition format".
2. Download SuperDuper from here:
SuperDuper is VERY easy to use. It will clone the contents of your current boot drive to the NEW HDD.
3. When done, open the "startup disk" preference pane. Click the lock and enter your password. Then click the HDD to designate it as the new boot drive.
4. Reboot. That should be all you need to do.
Since when has a Mac Mini came with 16 gigs of HD storage???
Something is amiss!
Something is amiss!
It's possible that OP has (as stated) added a 4TB, and it could be a platter HDD, or might be an SSD. We don't know. Might even be added as an internal drive. Lots of possibilities here, and the OP so far, has not yet told us which mini this is.
The OP just has not told us much yet.
A 2.5 SATA drive might be either platter, or SSD. That storage tab should list that, but could be either.
The OP just has not told us much yet.
No one can help you if you won’t give us the information we need.
Please follow these instructions and tell us the model name, year and chip of your Mac:
Find your Mac model name and serial number - Apple Support
Use any of these ways to find the model name and serial number of your Mac.
To use an analogy: If you ask someone to help repair your car you need to tell them what type of car you have.
I just check it and it says 16 gig
apple m1 Ventura 13.2 the Mac keeps freezingNo one can help you if you won’t give us the information we need.
Please follow these instructions and tell us the model name, year and chip of your Mac:
Find your Mac model name and serial number - Apple Support
Use any of these ways to find the model name and serial number of your Mac.support.apple.com
To use an analogy: If you ask someone to help repair your car you need to tell them what type of car you have.
External is the only option for storage expansion on Apple Silicon. You cannot add internal storage.
it's an M1 with 16 GB RAM I guess. You have at least a 256GB SSD internal Hard Drive.
The 4 TB Hard-Drive you're speaking about - you plug it in your Mac with a cable, right? Is the plug large and rectangular or smaller with rounded edges?
You can try to follow Apples suggestion on optimizing your storage:
support.apple.com
Do this "Choose Apple menu > System Settings, click General in the sidebar, then click Storage on the right" and tell us how much space is available and how much is used. It should look like this:
So
The 4 TB Hard-Drive you're speaking about - you plug it in your Mac with a cable, right? Is the plug large and rectangular or smaller with rounded edges?
You can try to follow Apples suggestion on optimizing your storage:
Free up storage space on Mac - Apple Support
Learn what to do if your Mac startup disk is almost full, or you don't have enough storage space to download, install, or copy.
Do this "Choose Apple menu > System Settings, click General in the sidebar, then click Storage on the right" and tell us how much space is available and how much is used. It should look like this:
Attachments
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Hmmm...
The OP doesn't seem able to give us the information we need to answer his questions.
So... I'm gonna guess.
OP:
If you bought an "m-series" Mini, you cannot easily boot and run from an external drive.
In other words, you MUST use the internal SSD to boot from.
But that's not a bad thing, because the internal SSD is far faster than most external drives, even external SSDs.
If the external drive you bought is a platter-based hard drive (NOT an SSD), it may not be possible to get the Mini to boot from it anyway -- some platter-based drives now seem to be "rejected" by the newest versions of the Mac OS (including Ventura, which you seem to have) -- they're simply too slow.
We need to know what size your internal drive is.
Here's how you can find that out:
a. boot up to the finder
b. click the hard drive icon ONE TIME to select it
c. bring up the get info box (type command-i)
d. look at what it says -- what do you see for "capacity"?
That's the size of the internal drive.
I'm going to take a GUESS that it's either 256gb or 512gb (or close to those numbers).
Either of these is fine for a boot drive.
If you have some "libraries" (such as the Photos library or iTunes music folder, or movies) that are LARGE, you CAN store these on the external drive.
But you should keep your
- OS
- applications
- account
... on the INTERNAL SSD.
Things will run better that way.
The OP doesn't seem able to give us the information we need to answer his questions.
So... I'm gonna guess.
OP:
If you bought an "m-series" Mini, you cannot easily boot and run from an external drive.
In other words, you MUST use the internal SSD to boot from.
But that's not a bad thing, because the internal SSD is far faster than most external drives, even external SSDs.
If the external drive you bought is a platter-based hard drive (NOT an SSD), it may not be possible to get the Mini to boot from it anyway -- some platter-based drives now seem to be "rejected" by the newest versions of the Mac OS (including Ventura, which you seem to have) -- they're simply too slow.
We need to know what size your internal drive is.
Here's how you can find that out:
a. boot up to the finder
b. click the hard drive icon ONE TIME to select it
c. bring up the get info box (type command-i)
d. look at what it says -- what do you see for "capacity"?
That's the size of the internal drive.
I'm going to take a GUESS that it's either 256gb or 512gb (or close to those numbers).
Either of these is fine for a boot drive.
If you have some "libraries" (such as the Photos library or iTunes music folder, or movies) that are LARGE, you CAN store these on the external drive.
But you should keep your
- OS
- applications
- account
... on the INTERNAL SSD.
Things will run better that way.