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APFS Experts: Imaging APFS Drives From One Machine to Another

Lucky736

Lucky736

macrumors 65816
Original poster
Jan 18, 2004
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So I bought a new machine. The prior machine is APFS formatted. The easy way for me to move data is to image one machine and restore the image to another. Normally I do this out of Recovery->Disk Utility. When I boot to Recovery it just shows the drive but no partition. When I go back to boot the machine, it boots fine etc. There are no disk errors. This AM I discovered there is an extra "Container" created, assuming this is the result of the APFS conversion and new structure. The post I have linked below states nothing can be done with imaging and restoring this, and creating an image from Macintosh HD is greyed out otherwise.

How do I image the drive to restore it onto another machine?

I also found this thread: https://discussions.apple.com/thread/8077336?start=0&tstart=0

I would prefer a first party as opposed to a third party method. I cannot imagine this not being able to be done.
 
Mike Boreham said:
https://support.apple.com/en-gb/HT204350

This was updated on Oct 5th 2017 and I doing think APFS changes things fundamentally.
Click to expand...

Unfortunately imaging a drive and bringing things over exactly VS using Migration Assistant are two very different things. This support article specifically deals with Migration Assistant which isn’t what I am after. Thank You though. Definitely the easiest way to just get files and apps over, just not quite what I was after.
 
Mike Boreham said:
https://support.apple.com/en-gb/HT204350

This was updated on Oct 5th 2017 and I doing think APFS changes things fundamentally.
Click to expand...

I sent that off a bit glibly, but if you have a TM backup or clone of your original, it will migrate with Setup Assistant on the new machine. I have done this a few times including with APFS (not new machines, but new disks and reconfiguring)

Setup Assistant works better than Migration Assistant in my experience.
[doublepost=1511717035][/doublepost]
Lucky736 said:
Unfortunately imaging a drive and bringing things over exactly VS using Migration Assistant are two very different things. This support article specifically deals with Migration Assistant which isn’t what I am after. Thank You though. Definitely the easiest way to just get files and apps over, just not quite what I was after.
Click to expand...

I agree MA can be problematical but SA has been pretty good for me. Not sure why you must do it via an image?
[doublepost=1511717972][/doublepost]
Lucky736 said:
Unfortunately imaging a drive and bringing things over exactly VS using Migration Assistant are two very different things. This support article specifically deals with Migration Assistant which isn’t what I am after. Thank You though. Definitely the easiest way to just get files and apps over, just not quite what I was after.
Click to expand...

I would have thought imaging an exact copy of the drive from one machine to a different machine might carry some risks that the new machine would not be using correct drivers etc? If you run the installer on the new machine you can be confident it is using what it needs to.
 
Mike Boreham said:
I sent that off a bit glibly, but if you have a TM backup or clone of your original, it will migrate with Setup Assistant on the new machine. I have done this a few times including with APFS (not new machines, but new disks and reconfiguring)

Setup Assistant works better than Migration Assistant in my experience.
[doublepost=1511717035][/doublepost]

I agree MA can be problematical but SA has been pretty good for me. Not sure why you must do it via an image?
[doublepost=1511717972][/doublepost]

I would have thought imaging an exact copy of the drive from one machine to a different machine might carry some risks that the new machine would not be using correct drivers etc? If you run the installer on the new machine you can be confident it is using what it needs to.
Click to expand...

You’d be surprised but the only time it’s been an issue is when a new model comes out and a new build of the OS is introduced with it. Small changes that sometimes can create an issue, or as of late not even allow the image with the older build to boot properly bc a lot of times the new hardware drivers are not in the current OS build. The first time a “point” update comes out the builds are even again and then it works with zero issue. :)
 
I know you said you really wanted a first party solution, but Carbon Copy Cloner can easily get this done for you. I have found imaging with disk utility to be challenging. Save yourself some time and headaches and download the free CCC5 version that work with APFS.
 
LarryJoe33 said:
I know you said you really wanted a first party solution, but Carbon Copy Cloner can easily get this done for you. I have found imaging with disk utility to be challenging. Save yourself some time and headaches and download the free CCC5 version that work with APFS.
Click to expand...

I may have to do that for this. The need to know the new structure for imaging later on exists though so I am more than curious how to go about this the direct way, and also what I’m not understanding about doing it with the new changes.
 
Is the new machine on High Sierra yet? If not I assume you are using the recovery on this machine and trying to just clone over the APFS container? I'm not completely clear on whats going on, however I would assume if may be a firmware issue. Contrary to what you will read everywhere, restoring APFS containers is completely doable even if the target machine has not run the High Sierra installer yet. What you have to do is download the High Sierra installer and open it up, then extract the firmware updater install package. You can run it on its own which will use the FirmwareUpdateLauncher tool to update the EFI partition with a new Boot Rom which should then make the device play well with APFS. After that you should be able to image using APFS containers, and even create images that are asr compatible to restore whenever you want.
 
BLUEDOG314 said:
Is the new machine on High Sierra yet? If not I assume you are using the recovery on this machine and trying to just clone over the APFS container? I'm not completely clear on whats going on, however I would assume if may be a firmware issue. Contrary to what you will read everywhere, restoring APFS containers is completely doable even if the target machine has not run the High Sierra installer yet. What you have to do is download the High Sierra installer and open it up, then extract the firmware updater install package. You can run it on its own which will use the FirmwareUpdateLauncher tool to update the EFI partition with a new Boot Rom which should then make the device play well with APFS. After that you should be able to image using APFS containers, and even create images that are asr compatible to restore whenever you want.
Click to expand...

So I should I have mentioned, in my research I did read about the firmware update that occurs for APFS. The new machine has had High Sierra on it before so the update has in fact been done.

I’m not sure where the hiccup may be as I did try to image the container to a read only and also a read write dmg to a drive then restore back to a container. I also tried reducing the original drives size by creating a blank partition from unsuited space and only imaging the partition with the data. Both drives are 250GB so I thought maybe the wise of the dmg was an issue. Ran into this once years back.
 
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