ext SSD boot or partitioned dual boot - 2018 Intel mini

[flang]

I would like to be able to run both Monterey (for Pro Tools 2024) and Sequoia for everything else.

For whatever reason, when I updated to Sequoia, Pro Tools didn't seem to care for it.
But I would like to get security updates for the last 2 years of Sequoias support (I'd guess).

Could I/should I partition the internal for Sequoia and Monterey boot?
Or am I better off making an ext SSD (T7 or the like) for one or the other?
Would the ext SSD be significantly slower?
The internal boots to log-in ~30s.
If an external took a minute more, it wouldn't bother me.

Not buying an M at this point.
Nor can I see the need for a Tbolt4 NVMe.

 

[Fishrrman]

How large is the internal drive?
How complex are the projects you're doing with ProTools?

You'd probably do best to get an external SSD (the fastest connection available), and put Monterey/ProTools on that one.

(since everything else will be using Sequoia).

I'd be cautious about putting two modern Mac OS's onto ONE drive.
Just too many partitions/containers/whatever getting into "the mix" of things.

 

[flang]

500M
Not very. Usually < 50 tracks, no VI.
Monty was what I was thinking for the ext.

 

[Boyd01]

I sure wouldn't put two operating systems on the same disk. But that's just my superstition, I guess. Is there really no update for ProTools?

A 2018 Mini is my primary machine, planning to stick with it since I heavily use a 32gb Windows VM. Still on Monterey, but plan to upgrade to Sequoia soon. Concerned about what that will break though...

The only real insights I can offer are some disk tests. I have quite a lot of Samsung external USB SSD's, I use them pretty much the same way I used floppy disks on my Apple ][ 🤣

This is my internal SSD, but since yours is smaller, it might be a little slower

I ran my 2012 quad mini from a Samsung T3 1tb boot disk and it worked fine although it only clocked around 400MB/sec. But the original internal Apple 256gb SSD was only about 500 MB/sec on that Mac. I'm sure the 2018 will work with a T7, but there's quite a performance difference. Would be reluctant to do that myself, but I guess you'd just have to try and see, might be fine.

 

[flang]

I don't think PT is the issue. My '18 mini actually started showing difficulty connecting to Magic Tpad 2 (BT), but only under Seq when I updated to it. So that got me a little nervous. Then I had an SEP kernel panic.

I had the Apple geniis do a DFU restore and stepped back to Monty, which has been fine.
In doing some other reading and research, I have found that not all 2018 minis are created equal .... shall we say.

That is a pretty big (by numbers, anyway) difference between int and T7.

But since I've created a bootable b.u. with CCC on a spinner I have and that worked fine (although took forever to get there) I will prolly get a T7 and make a bootable Monty on that with PT. If it's reasonable, it won't just be my b.u. but Monty drive for PT and update the mini to Seq again.

Hopefully, without PT and related stuff on the internal, Seq will behave. Though I can't think of a reason to have the MTpad2 behave differently under different OS, since it's all Apple gear.

 

[Boyd01]

In doing some other reading and research, I have found that not all 2018 minis are created equal .... shall we say.

Which 2018 do you have? I have the 6-core i7 with 64gb original Apple RAM and 2tb internal SSD. This has been a really great, trouble-free machine for me since 2020. I really need Intel for my Windows work, so I plan to stick with it as long as possible. Your problems are making me nervous about upgrading to Sequoia though! 😄

If I was using all Mac software, would definitely upgrade to an m4 Mini or possibly a Studio.

 

[flang]

exact same spec other than the int drive. Mine has been trouble free until I tired Seq.
I was thinking 2 more years of security updates with Seq, but ....

 

[bzgnyc2]

I have 3 different versions of macOS on my (Intel) MacBook Air 2020 and 2 versions of macOS on my Mac Mini 2018. Each OS is in their own hard partition. I haven't seen any problems from this.

Only issue is that older macOS like Mojave don't understand the newer APFS of Monterey, etc. I disable it from automounting that partition but it still generates a message on login (macOS could be better at letting the user control the automounter and similar such things but that's another story).

The main issue I see with you putting two OS on the internal drive is space and user files/data. Two OS will fit and then some but it will squeeze the remaining space for your home folder/documents/etc. If ~ 250GB is enough for your data then you should be okay. But after two OS, probably duplicate installation of some applications, and leaving some space free, I wouldn't plan on keeping more than 250GB on the internal disk.

On a related note, how do you plan to share your files between the two OS? On my desktop, I keep my home folder on an external disk. On my laptop, I keep it on a separate partition on the internal disk. However one thing I don't routinely do is use the same home folder between two different versions of the OS. That is, once I login to the home folder with a newer OS version, I don't use that same home folder with an older OS version. I suspect you are most likely to run into glitches running two different versions of the OS when you try to share the same ~/Library folder between two OS. Older versions of macOS may not know what to do with Preferences and databases (e.g. the Mail folder structure/database) created by the newer macOS and vice-versa newer versions may get confused by changes older macOS makes to those files/databases. It may all work well but I haven't really tested going back and forth between OS versions with the same home folder.