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M4 mini with external boot drive?
- Thread starter toke lahti
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- external boot drive
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The OP wants to get a new mini at lowest cost (256GB internal). Then boot from an external. In my view this is mistaken economy. There are at least two issues: 1) the SSDs referred to are all slowish, and 2) the 256GB has been discontinued with M4 Mini and presumably will not be available on M5/M6 Mini.
1) I agree with you entirely
2) I understand getting cheapest available and adding external storage, but why boot from the external storage?
That’s where I’m lost
Re: "if the UASP protocol is supported on the USB device, TRIM will work"
Do a search on MacRumors. I made a note of that from a post I saw here at least a year ago, if I remember right.
It also contained the Terminal command to see it Trim was working.
As I posted, that statement is true for the hardware I have; that is, 2.5" Crucial MX500 SSDs in cheap Orico plastic enclosures. As shown by both of the Terminal commands below
Code:
log show --predicate "processID == 0" | grep spaceman | grep -i trim
log show --debug --last boot --predicate "processID == 0" | grep trim
The recent threads are:
TRIM on USB External SSD Supported Now?
I know it's been long established that MacOS does not support TRIM for USB-connected SSDs. However, in searching for information about this, I came across this post: https://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/411117/is-it-possible-to-manually-trim-the-unused-blocks-free-space-for-an-existing-a...
forums.macrumors.com
TRIM questions
I am looking for an external SSD / 40Gpbs Enclosure primarily to use with macos but after researching a lot I am still confused about the current status of TRIM. 1) If macos (Sequoia) does not support TRIM over USB then how does Samsung (T series) or other brands external SSDs support this...
forums.macrumors.com
I don't believe earlier ones are relevant as there was probably some change with Monterey.
It doesn't help that respected commentators like Howard Oakley have suggested that TRIM does/may not work on any USB 3.x SSD. And Apple, as usual, says nothing.
Sure, UASP is a requirement. But I don't think it is that simple.
It would seem that for USB 3.x SSDs we have:
1) Some SSDs (e.g. your 2.5" Crucial MX500 SSDs in cheap Orico plastic enclosures) TRIM out of the box. [That is a surprise to me!]
2) Some SSDs will TRIM with additional software - e.g. my Samsung T5 and T7 with the Activation kext from here https://www.samsung.com/us/business/support/owners/product/t7-series-500gb/ (not Samsung Magician). [That also was a surprise to me when I discovered it in the MacRumors threads!!]
3) Some SSDs do not TRIM.
My preferred command to see TRIM performance is:
log show --debug --last boot --predicate "processID == 0" | grep -e "blocks free in" -e "blocks trimmed" which shows that TRIMing can take a long time (~12 minutes for my T5/T7).Finally, I am unclear about the need to run
trimforce or even whether it is advisable to try it. Made no difference for my SSDs. Did you need trimforce to get your Crucial SSDs to TRIM?RE; Did you need trimforce to get your Crucial SSDs to TRIM?The recent threads are:
TRIM on USB External SSD Supported Now?
I know it's been long established that MacOS does not support TRIM for USB-connected SSDs. However, in searching for information about this, I came across this post: https://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/411117/is-it-possible-to-manually-trim-the-unused-blocks-free-space-for-an-existing-a...TRIM questions
I am looking for an external SSD / 40Gpbs Enclosure primarily to use with macos but after researching a lot I am still confused about the current status of TRIM. 1) If macos (Sequoia) does not support TRIM over USB then how does Samsung (T series) or other brands external SSDs support this...
I don't believe earlier ones are relevant as there was probably some change with Monterey.
It doesn't help that respected commentators like Howard Oakley have suggested that TRIM does/may not work on any USB 3.x SSD. And Apple, as usual, says nothing.
Sure, UASP is a requirement. But I don't think it is that simple.
It would seem that for USB 3.x SSDs we have:
1) Some SSDs (e.g. your 2.5" Crucial MX500 SSDs in cheap Orico plastic enclosures) TRIM out of the box. [That is a surprise to me!]
2) Some SSDs will TRIM with additional software - e.g. my Samsung T5 and T7 with the Activation kext from here https://www.samsung.com/us/business/support/owners/product/t7-series-500gb/ (not Samsung Magician). [That also was a surprise to me when I discovered it in the MacRumors threads!!]
3) Some SSDs do not TRIM.
My preferred command to see TRIM performance is:
log show --debug --last boot --predicate "processID == 0" | grep -e "blocks free in" -e "blocks trimmed"which shows that TRIMing can take a long time (~12 minutes for my T5/T7).
Finally, I am unclear about the need to runtrimforceor even whether it is advisable to try it. Made no difference for my SSDs. Did you needtrimforceto get your Crucial SSDs to TRIM?
Not sure if it was required or not or of the order that I used to set the "Sudo Trimforce enabled" command. But in any case it was used shortly before or after getting those USB enclosures. I have reset the MBA several times thereafter, and always re-entered the trim command. I have also used grep commands several times to confirm that the drives are getting trimmed. Surprising or not, trim works with the Crucial MX500 drives enclosed in the Orico enclosure while running Sequoia.
Where did you get than 256GB?
I want to pay as little apple tax as I can.
512 does not solve the issue, I can't fit "all" to even 2TB.
Check out the price difference with those.
And: ssd in tb-enclosure can be faster than internal one.
Anyway: speed of ssd does not slow me down in any way, as long it's writing over 100MB/s. (In some cases 200MB/S.)
Faster than that, there are other bottlenecks like the speed of the user.
Number game with write speeds is bonkers, exactly like with cellular data. What could you even do with your iPhone with faster than 50Mbit/s...
Okay, so the next time, I'm buying a boot disk, I need to find an adapter or enclosure that has drivers (kexts) for macOS?
The one I'm using does not have any:
SATA to USB-C Cable, USB 10Gbps to 2.5in SATA I II III Hard Drive Adapter, External Converter for SSD or HDD Data Transfer
SATA to USB-C Cable, USB 10Gbps to 2.5in SATA I II III Hard Drive Adapter, External Converter for SSD or HDD Data Transfer
www.startech.com
But that's not enough?
Fishrrman
macrumors Nehalem
OP wrote:
"512 does not solve the issue, I can't fit "all" to even 2TB."
Unless you buy Apple refurbished, they're not going to sell you (new) another Mini with a 256gb internal SSD. 512gb is "the new minimum"...
Having said that, if you have "large libraries" of music, photos and movies, move THEM to the external drive.
But... boot and run (OS, apps, accounts) from the internal drive.
I posted this earlier in the thread, I'm going to repeat:
I'm thinking that at some point in the future, Apple may discontinue/prevent booting from all external drives. I could be wrong, but...
... can you boot an iPad from an external drive?
... can you boot an iPhone from an external drive?
"512 does not solve the issue, I can't fit "all" to even 2TB."
Unless you buy Apple refurbished, they're not going to sell you (new) another Mini with a 256gb internal SSD. 512gb is "the new minimum"...
Having said that, if you have "large libraries" of music, photos and movies, move THEM to the external drive.
But... boot and run (OS, apps, accounts) from the internal drive.
I posted this earlier in the thread, I'm going to repeat:
I'm thinking that at some point in the future, Apple may discontinue/prevent booting from all external drives. I could be wrong, but...
... can you boot an iPad from an external drive?
... can you boot an iPhone from an external drive?