SOME IMPORTANT NOTES: FYI the 512 SSD option is twice as fast on the write speeds but not the read speeds. The 512 is 4000MBs write - the 256 is 2000MBs write , both are 3000MB read. Also Apps like Pro Tools get installed to All Users and the apps don't take up that much space so don't try and move apps for all users into the external applications folder, I would test apps on a one by one bases when moved externally. You can install their sound libraries samples etc on to the external drive and point the apps to them.
And the speed difference only translates to marginal performance gains in all but a very few cases anyway. Unless you're moving 50GB files around all the time, you're not even going to notice the difference. It's all very fast once you get to 2000 MB/s. I tested the boot time of an 8GB Windows 11 virtual machine using VMware on the internal SSD and an external SSD with a top speed of 1000MB/s, and the latter was only one second slower -- 10 seconds vs 9 seconds.
@@MacSoundSolutions I had read about that but opted to step up the unified memory a notch instead. I’ve been working with a 2018 MBP 15” with 1TB drive and loads of memory but it struggles with photoshop and Topaz AI tasks. My wife’s 2022 MacBook Air 15” M2 standard build 512 MB mops floor with it performance wise. Excited to put my new mini to work. My first computer was an EPSON with an 8088 cpu. It cost around CDN$2200 in 1986, 30 MB hard drive and two floppy disks, monochrome monitor
Does this work with a 4TB Xternal drive as well or is it limited to 2TB? And can you transfer/migrate everything from your M2 to the new M4 with xternal drive you've setup so you don't have to reinstall everything again?...Sorry for all the questions TY so much for al the NF0!!
Also DOes it effect the speed for Audio recording from DAW's using the xternal drive or does the Mini think that the xternal is an internal and works as if it is an internal? FYI I'm Using UAD Apollo x6's.....TY for the vids
I picked up a used mac for my 15yo daughter to use garageband. I cant tell you how helpful your videos are to someone who has been using Windows for 20+ years. I have learned alot from your videos and I am now building a hackintosh for myself without messing up her mac. I appreciate the info!
At 12:50 you illustrate how one user can’t see into another’s home folders, as expected. Can you test whether these privileges hold for the home folders you copied to the external? If you have multiple people using your computer you would want this privacy feature to be in place on all their external folders.
This tutorial is GOLDEN. I have watched dozens of other videos explaining basically the same thing but with a lot of technical background that I feel are not necessary. I trust Lance as a savvy user, as I feel I am, but I am not as technically proficient as a lot of guys out there. I just need to set things up quickly and efficiently without paying Apple more than necessary. Thanks Lance.
Picked base model this week. Bestbuy Black Friday sale have good deals on external SSD this week. Picked up Crucial X10 2 TB SSD for 150$. Read up to 2k MB but whatever. Fast enough for what I used it for. I followed Lance's tips. When installing, I dragged the installer icon to the Application folder on external drive. Show up in Launchpad automatically. Loved the size. I can take it with me when I'm traveling. Plugged to hotel's room tv.
Awesome video! If anyone is experiencing their Mac mini m4 crashing and restarting after connecting an external drive, here's something that might help. Sometimes, simply preventing disk sleep from the settings menu isn’t enough to stop it from sleeping and I suspect this could be the issue I was having, and what worked for me was entering the following commands in Terminal: sudo pmset -a disksleep 0 sudo pmset -a sleep 0 After applying these, my Mac mini hasn’t crashed so far (still testing, but fingers crossed!). Hope this helps someone out there!
It happened again, not long ago after my "fix." I've tried a myriad of different things that so far till now seem to hopefully have worked again. Here are a couple to mention: 1. Prevented the external nvme enclosure drive from being indexed by spotlight. 2. Increased the time it takes for the display to turn off after a screen saver becomes active to 5 minutes or 10 minutes. The second suggestion with the display setting came from a forum post where someone was having seemingly the exact same issue as I did and someone else suggested it was a display or GPU issue (even though they didn't mention an external drive being an issue). When my mac would recover from the crash/restart, I would take the error log and ask ChatGPT about it, and it responds, claiming it's a kernel panic related to the display or GPU (Currently using HDMI + 4k high refresh rate monitor).
@@Sarsour_ so what is the issue, I can sleep two external drives and no crashes. But you can just set the settings for drives to not sleep when the display sleeps if you want.
@MacSoundSolutions It seems like the issue has been resolved so far after my last update mentioned about increasing the screen's time to switch off after a screen saver to 5 minutes, which is what I set it at. That was also a solution I read off an apple forum thread, as I mentioned. The sleep prevention settings from the settings menu and the terminal command weren't enough to solve it for my case in particular, so hopefully this helps anybody who might ever come across the issue, though I should probably document these suggestions in a forum post.
Ive never seen a more concise and to the point video, truly a masterpiece of a tutorial! Especially since its basic use case and not weird one off test/use case. Really appreciate the work you put into this!
Got mine yesterday. Moved mail to external with symlink to original folder, photo library external, steam library external and whiskey bottles external. Easy enough. App Store is also configured to put >1 GB apps to external.
Lance, you can get your external drive’s apps to automatically appear in the Launchpad by placing a symlink of the external drive’s Applications folder in your user folder.
I do the same with mail, have a lot of mailboxes, have the main mail library folder symlinked to the external drive. And photo library placed to external too.
This didn't work for me. I tried it just a few minutes ago. I created an alias to Applications folder on my external drive, moved the alias to my home folder (also on the external drive), and then renamed the alias to "Applications"
That's the first actually helpful video on how to use your external storage in the most optimal way. I had to mess with sym-links a lot to make something work and if you know anything about MacOS this can get sloppy fast. This information is a lifesaver!
If you live within a 2 hr drive of a Microcenter, these have been $499 for over a week. Atlanta stores restocked 27+ units today, spread across 2 stores. Again $499 for over a week now. If using MICROCENTER’s credit card, $475 before tax.
Great video. It helped me understand the Mac file system. I had my documents and desktop folders on my iCloud and wanted it on my Mac. This helped me so much 🙏🙏
Excellent work, thank you very much for taking the time to delve into this, Very cool! BTW, B&H Photo has the Mini in stock and is asking $560, and if you have their payboo credit card you save the tax, so you pay $20 more but they ship now instead of a couple of weeks later...
Hello, me again, nice to see that you are taking all the risks we do not want to take I haven't bought my Apple mini yet, I downloaded your video and take notes on every thing you do. You are a fast thinker, I am not. Many thanks for all the info.
Hey Lance. I followed your guide and have some other insight to offer based on my experience thus far. I use encrypted APFS. This is a little tricky because MacOS no longer prompts for an APFS password at boot up on Apple Silicon Macs. It needs to be pre-mounted. The way I was able to work around that limitation was to use the secondary admin user I created to login first, mount the external drive with my home directory on it under that user, and then lock the screen and login as me from the lock screen. The other thing I did was to hookup a 43" LG 4K UHD TV as the display and set the resolution down from the native 3840x2160 to 2560x1440 - and it looks STUNNING with retina-like smoothness. Not bad for a TV I paid $189 for. I hope some find this helpful. Cheers!
@@6StringPassion. you are spot on I did same today, if you set the internal user to auto login with the encrypted drive in its keychain you only have to type the password once to login the external user and bingo.
@@MacSoundSolutionshi lance, I’m awfully sorry for the silly question (I am far from adept)… I also set my external as encrypted and now cannot log in. I know it’s a pain but could you walk me through how to solve this as I now cannot log in with or without my external disk plugged in?
@@TheItalianNomad new video on this posted today or tomorrow. Basically you need to have the internal backup user administrator account. Log into that on boot, the encrypted drive will ask for its password, click save in keychain, them you can switch users even log out of the internal at this point, but when ever you boot up you have to log into the internal user first and the encrypted drive will mount because its now in the keychain of the internal user and then just switch to the external user, it's a little bit of a pain but if you don't shut down often then its not a major big issue.
I would also like to mention the new Mac Mini also has upgradeable storage with 2 slots in each one. Now both drives are diffrent and also they need to come out of another Mac Mini and you also need a DFU Restore from another Mac to make it work :)
Great video, simple, concise but thorough, thank you! I've been using a Mac for decades but with how often Apple changes things around have completely lost touch on how to do this.
@MacSoundSolutions Fantastic videos Lance! And thanks to ALL who have been contributing info to Lance! These videos are really sharing something important and needed. So happy to see all the updates on processes Lance. THANK YOU ROCK --AND-- COMPUTER STAR!!!!! 🤩🤩🤩
Great video 👏 I can’t believe I haven’t come across your channel before. As a long time Mac user (since the late 1990’s), and a long-time IT professional, I can appreciate the work you’ve put into creating very useful videos like this! I’m just trying to decide what to do with my 12+ year old Mac Mini since I upgraded to the M1 Mac Mini a few years ago, since these Mac products just keep going and going like the energizer bunny 😂
A helpful tip: order the Zike drive enclosure allowing plenty of time; it ships from Hong Kong and takes awhile, depending on where you live. I have my Mini and NVMe all ready to go, but still waiting for Zike .... yike!
@@MacSoundSolutions Update. Zike drive enclosure arrived today (Vancouver, Washington). It took a total of 13 days from the order date, which I don't think is too bad for all the way from Honk Honk. For folks ordering one, I'd allow two weeks delivery time in the U.S. to be on the safe side. The enclosure looks fantastic and is well made.
Personally, I prefer to leave the Home directory on the main drive. And create symlinks for the large stuff out. Example Photos, Music, Movies, Applications and if needed Library. That makes sure what you need is on the external drive, but the Home directory is always part of the main drive. Its easier to implement, just copy and symlinks. Its also much easier from a time-machine backup-restore perspective. You can be up and running quickly in case of a restore. But anyway, really really good tutorial for a lot of folks.
@@asterix908 thanks and sure I use sym links with my Mac Pro. TimeMachine is very easy to setup with this method, but each to his own, for those with the base model this is a good alternative and works well and enabling a lot more space for iCloud backups etc, not everyone is comfortable using terminal to creat sym links.
Thank you for this! Today I am ordering my Mac Mini M4. Based on your two videos, I have bought a 2TB Samsung Thunderbolt 4 and enclosure and will be following your 10 step transfer process. Extremely helpful and oh so timely! Many thanks, like and a sub for you today.
The internal drive is going to be replaceable at some point, since it isn't soldered in. I am sure there will be 3rd party inexpensive upgrades at some point.
Oh man! This is great stuff! This is exactly what I was looking for. I have yet to buy the Mac mini as I am still struggling with which configuration to choose. That could save me quite a bit of money. Just subscribed.
Another approach to moving the home folder on new machines is to make the first account you create the “Backup Account” and when creating a new admin account on “Users & Groups” you also change the home folder so the first login on that account will already be in the external folder.
Yeah that’s true, the 256 is still a lot slower than the 512 but still fast enough. I bumped it up to 512GB because after all some data will always be written on it so for longevity it will probably make a difference
@jooplin I've seen people do speed tests showing 256 is the same speed is 512 for this generation. I thought it was just M2 that they took away the RAID for the 256 model?!
@@aerobrain2001 hmm maybe I need to check again, but I saw one guy using the BlackMagic Disk test and it was roughly half the speed of the 512GB with the M4 Mac Mini, it has two chips now but that could just be because the 256GB was really full maybe?
@@aerobrain2001 I am just thinking to myself, if you really try this approach with the home folder, than 250Gb maybe will last an easy 10 years. If I assume it's a premium quality SSD it could last about 150TBW, I think that's a very generous estimation. Could be trouble if you have consistently high workloads and will more often swap memory than maybe you could run into trouble in the future, also a faster SSD will make the memory swaps less noticable. Also the fresh new OS will get cluttered and you'll never know if the storage requirements for newer OS versions will get higher I personally would always second guess my 256GB choice if I had hiccups or any kind of trouble, so I went for the safe bet with 512GB. The memory upgrades aren't that steep if you order somewhere else than Apple. I got mine with 16GB and 512GB now for 763€, would have cost me 929€ in the Apple Store. Thanks for listening to my TED Talk
Nicely done. A very helpful properly detailed demo that can be super useful to so many to save money. For older minis and the Mac Studio maybe the Satechi hub is a good option to give you a base hub with USB-A ports and SD/microSD card slots with home drive in it. I'm sure there will something similar for the M4 mini form factor soon too.
I ordered mac mini 4 with 24 Ram & 512GB….. I will just use the external ssd for the apps,since apple already make the option for installing large apps on SSD…. Thanks a lot for
Nice and the 512 does get faster right speeds on the SSD and the 256. I originally thought they were the same but the 512 gets double the right speeds in the same speeds as the 256
Wow, lots of good stuff in there. Lots of areas covered that I have touched in the past, but a few gems in there that I didn't know about. I'll definitely review this video again if/when I get my next mac mini or studio or imac (probably in a year or two). Thanks for doing this and for all the good information/tricks/hints.
5:17 - the Internal "Home folder" -- and the External "Home folder" side by side. 5:33 - "Now we have to go to System Prefs to make our External Home folder become the Active one. (go to: 9:04 )
These video's have been great! I have the m4 256gb. The home folders are now running off the the external drive. Of which runs faster than the internal. Thank you for making great videos on this. Very simple to follow! 👍
Getting a mac mini in a couple of weeks, and very much looking forward to setting it up supported by your excellent videos on the subject. Much appreciated my man 🤗
Amazon is back-ordered until after Christmas. Also, Costco has even better prices but they are all out of stock until December, or later. Seems the Minis is flying off the shelves.
I’m glad I ordered a week after launch (saw reviews etc) and already have mine. Great piece of hardware, shame on Apple to include 256 GB SSDs in 2024… (or they could just ask 50€ for the upgrade, that is what costs a full drive with controller, so the extra 256 GB without a controller for Apple must cost 10€ or so (at most…)
Think i will put two accounts on mine. a small local admin one i use rarely. and a large external one for my main account. so i can always get it if the external isn’t available
switched 20yrs ago an never went back even though use windows suite 90% of time. microsoft just runs infinitely better with no issues on apple hardware with opencore. 2009 mbp causes zero issues compared to brand new multi thousand pc
@@RichieKeane Funny, there was a guy on another comment thread that said he needed to run a Windows 11 virtual machine on his macOS system because the macOS version of MS Office had issues with the stuff he was doing...
Wow, this was exactly what I was looking for, thank you for this detailed guide. As a developer I need the extra space for all my docker sh*t and the 512 just don't cut it.
i used ur set up on my new base mac mini - external ssd 2tb : after logging in to icloud , if any one has issues with server apps after ie app store , apple tv etc... just log out icloud and re log in in resolves it , thx for ur easy set up
Does Apple Intelligence still work? I know if you put the operating system completely on an external drive. It will not. Will it work with just the home folder moved?
Got my Mac mini (base Model, my first Mac) on Thursday for the full price @ 699,- Euro. There are cheaper options with prices below 600,- Euros but than delivery will take ages - and I wanted my Mini on that day! I had a 1 TB SSD lying around so I plugged that to the Mini and it is working fine. Using RISC OS and Windows since the Mid 1990 OSX was (and is) quite a difference but meanwhile I got along. Well, except for the some more unique Keyboard setting (refresh is on what key?)... On the other hand i was amazingly surprised how easy OSX connected with my existing hardware, specially my Canon printer/scanner. No comparison with windows. I think the base Mini is a great device and offers much value for the Euro. Sadly the upgrade prices are just insane.
Thank you for letting us know about the Amazon special, I just placed my order and although it will take a few weeks to arrive the total with taxes and coupon applied was $541.26, that's almost a $100 savings.
@@Jgonzalezjuy1 At the time to checkout the item it popped up right there under "payment method" right above where you add your reward points and I applied it. I wonder if you have to be a Prime member to get the added discount?
@@Jgonzalezjuy1 Not sure if my other reply made it. At the time that you're in the checkout section right there under :payment method" it popped up for me right above where the rewards points are located.
Really helpful video, I do plan to get the mac mini m4 256gb next year sometime when I get enough for it. I currently use a gaming pc I built a couple years ago but this new mac mini might be something I can use on the side.
Jaw dropping, it's time for me to upgrade and i'm looking at this very closely. In fact i was waiting for the Mac Studio M4 because of the reported fan noise with the Mac Mini M4 Pro. I use Protools Ultimate with HD Native and HD i/o...
I’m curious if you move the home folder onto an external drive, if the external drive dies on you, and you get a new drive then give it the same name, will the Time Machine backup recognise the new drive as the right location to restore your data to?
I believe it will, I’m going to check out Time Machine and do a video on it very soon, but I already know you can back up the external drive combined with the internal and I believe you could just copy the home folder on Time Machine to the new drive and then activate it
I asked ChatGPT ;) It would affect my choice for 256 vs 512GB version. Maybe someone can corroborate this but it seems correct to me: Which drive is used for swap memory when you use the Mac mini m4 with the home folder and all non Apple apps moved to an external nvme 40GB drive? Is it the internal drive or the external drive? I’m asking because if it’s the external drive I won’t need to buy the 512GB version but am set with the 256GB version. I can then use that cash to get more RAM instead, like 24GB instead of the base version’s 16GB. Answer: When using a Mac Mini M4 with the home folder and non-Apple apps moved to an external NVMe SSD, the decision of where macOS uses swap memory depends on how the system handles the external and internal drives. How macOS Handles Swap Memory 1. Swap Memory Basics: • macOS uses the internal SSD by default for swap memory because it’s tightly integrated into the Apple Silicon architecture. • Swap memory is critical for system performance when your RAM is fully utilized. Apple optimizes the internal SSD for this task because of its high speed and reliability. 2. Moving the Home Folder to an External Drive: • While your home folder and application data are stored on the external drive, macOS still uses the internal SSD for swap memory. • External NVMe drives are not used for swap memory, even if the external drive is fast and has ample free space. macOS prioritizes the internal SSD for this task because of its secure and low-latency connection to the system. 3. Why the Internal SSD Is Critical for Swap: • The internal SSD is integrated into the system for macOS operations, including virtual memory and swap. • Thunderbolt connections, while fast, have higher latency compared to the direct connection of the internal SSD. Recommendation Based on Setup • 256GB Internal SSD with 24GB RAM: • If you increase the RAM to 24GB, macOS will use less swap memory overall, making the 256GB internal SSD sufficient for system tasks. • Your external NVMe can handle the majority of storage needs, including the home folder and applications. • 512GB Internal SSD with 16GB RAM: • If you stay with 16GB RAM, the internal SSD will need to handle more swap activity, and the 512GB version will provide better durability (more NAND chips) and faster speeds for intensive tasks. Verdict • If swap memory stays on the internal SSD (which it does), upgrading to 24GB RAM will reduce swap usage, making the 256GB SSD + external NVMe a practical setup. • If you often run memory-intensive tasks (e.g., video editing, large simulations), the extra RAM will benefit you more than the additional internal SSD space. Summary: Investing in 24GB RAM with the 256GB SSD + external NVMe is a better option if your workflow involves heavy multitasking but doesn’t require excessive internal storage.
macOS always uses the swap memory file on the boot drive. So, in this example, the swap memory will be written to the internal SSD since that's still the boot drive.
@@MutantWorm This is why you should never depend on ChatGPT. It's mostly accurate, but the gains are marginal at best. Assuming you keep your 256GB drive under 60% full, that's more than enough to maximize the SSD's performance and durability. The speed difference for the swapper's activity is not even going to be noticeable between 256GB and 512GB. The extra bandwidth of the larger drive is only useful for copying very large amounts of data (e.g. 50GB or more on a regular basis) which is what your fast TB4 external drive is for. You only need more memory if the memory pressure goes into the red and maybe the yellow. If it stays in the green, then upgrading the RAM or the SSD will do next to nothing for you in terms of performance. A fast Thunderbolt 4 SSD solution is by far the cheaper option and you won't notice any slowdown. I tested the boot time of my 8GB Windows 11 VM on the internal drive and a "slow" (1000MB/s) external SSD. The internal took 9 seconds, the "slow" external took 10 seconds. If I had used a fast PCIe Gen 4 drive instead, there would have been no difference. And unless you're a very heavy user, there is no way you're going to wear out your internal SSD in less than 10 years, and probably not even 15 years, especially if you're using an external drive for your home folder.
Ok. New sub on the basis of your last 3 videos. You obviously know what you are doing and I dont but I think I might try this. Hopefully I wont trash the mini. Coming from windows, where I didnt know what I was doing either. Seems as though I will need to max out the caffeine 👍
What is the advantage to doing this vs booting from an external SSD? I boot from an external on my M1 Mac mini and don't even touch the internal drive...Great Video !!
Thanks for the great video, I am definitely going to do exactly the same. Question is, what would happen if the external drive goes bad? What are the options to keep the data safe other than time machine backups?
Yes, you can but of course you want to have that back up user because if your drive is not attached and you go to login to the external home account, you will have issues so you need a back up internal administrative user so you can log into your Mac when the external drive is not connected
@MacSoundSolutions so if the internal drive user account is present and the external drive is disconnected will it automatically switch back to using the internal one?
Hi, thank you so much for your videos. I have been watching them and it help me set up my external SSD. I was able to encrypt the drive and like you said when you restart the Mac it won't recognize it. The trick around is to log in into the back up user then enter the password for the external SSD then Lock Screen ( Do Not Log Out) and log into the main user and it works. Then once you are in if you want you can log out of the back up user but not necessary.
Apart from the faster speed of the external SSD, why not install macOS on a fast external SSD and boot the Mac mini from it? Are there any known problems with this, and would it work properly? For example, I'm in music production and want to go this route with an external 4TB SSD, as the libraries from Native Instruments, UVI, Arturia, and so on are massive. // edit: Ok, I just watched the other video on the channel that different functionalities won't work when booting from an external drive. The best choice is to move the home folder to an external drive or all music-related libraries to an external drive.
There is one. Apple Intelligence doesn't work if you boot externally, at least for now. No idea if that limitation will ever change, though, and I don't see much need for using it yet, anyway...
Have you been able to figure out how to encrypt the external drive with all of your personal info and pictures on it? When you do, it won’t mount. I ended up moving my home folder back to the internal drive and then using the external one as an overflow drive for large items like my 400gb photos library. Encrypting this drive is not a problem since it isn’t required at startup and mounts once logged in.
@@MacSoundSolutions, thanks! Interested to see how that turns out. I don’t think I tried it that way. Wonder if the keychain the password gets saved to though might be in the user folder which is then on the encrypted drive. Looking forward to what you find out!
Why move anything?. Why not set up the internal admin account first? When logged into this, setup your main user account and then change the home folder location before even logging into it. Then when you log in to your proper account for the first time, everything is created on the external drive from the very start. No need to move anything. I assume this will work, I don’t see why not.
@ I want to try this, but I set mine up to boot entirely off the external drive. I want to change it so it uses the internal drive with the user folder on the external, but I’d want to clone the external drive first in case I want to go back, and I don’t have a drive big enough (my external is 4TB).
It also seems counterproductive to move applications to an external drive when the internal is much faster. You’d need a LOT of apps to fill the 256GB internal drive. Having user data on the external is fine though. I though this video would be about a hardware mod, not just plugging another drive in 😁
@@Stabby666 the external is faster than the base internal 256GB. Plus, running the OS on an external drive means Apple Intelligence and Apple Pay don’t work (which I didn’t know when setting up). I’m actually doing a Time Machine backup now and will try my method and report back. Oh - also, I noticed my idle power consumption was a little higher than others were reporting, which I assume is due to the OS being on an external drive. Hopefully with the OS on the internal drive, idle power use will be reduced.
@ if an external drive is faster than the internal then that’s a terrible design I think. The PCI-E bus should be the fastest way to transfer data so maybe it’s cheaper controller chips or something.
Yes copy the whole applications folder don’t open it and drag the apps over. So you don’t need to creat an app folder just copy the whole app folder from the internal to the external.
I got a Msi M482 for cheaper than the teamgroup so i went with that also a Maiwo External was half the price of the Zike drive, and also works without a hitch. with full speed
To expand on rorywalter's very important question below, how do backups and restore work with this setup? No way I'm doing this if I can't have functional backups! If you use Time Machine will it allow the backup data to be restored to another replacement disk, and will the new paths allow projects like in Logic to work? If you don't use Time Machine, can you copy the external drive, and then maybe rename the copy to the externals name if the original external fails? Can Superduper or Carbon Copy function for backups? How does backup/restore work - if it does at all. After all, this is not something Apple is encouraging us to do, as they would much rather sell us super expensive storage options! Lance, maybe you could answer these questions in the next video where you show how to move data? Or do a separate video on the backup/ restore issue, where you actually test this out?
Plan on it new video posting today which covers a lot of it. You can do a time machine backup of everything g external and internal no pro. But I will make a time machine dedicated video todays video uses migration from a time machine backup to transfer your data onto a new mini.
Thanks for your videos. I did add an external 1TB SSD to my M4 Mini, and migrated my home folder to it and activated it, however, I cannot copy ANY applications from my internal drive to my new external drive. I tried downloading a new app from the Mac App Store and it loaded onto the internal hard disk, without giving me any options to install it on the new external drive. I also cannot delete non-systems apps from the Applications folder on the internal drive, despite it not being locked and that it has Read/Write permissions for "Everyone". This smells like a permissions problem but I cannot see what it is
You need to be logged into the external account and then just drag and drop the applications folder from the internal drive to the external drive and if that doesn’t work, log back into your internal backup user and do the same thing. Don’t copy the individual applications copy the whole folder
@ I’ll leave it to the Mac experts to answer what we could be doing to cause the issue, I was happy to learn all you need to do is log in to he backup account to delete them from the system hard drive.
@@mattmc190 you need to log into an internal administrator account to delete the internal apps. If you didn’t make one you can easily add it now then delete the apps.
No matter what I try, my Finder is not showing the "Show Library Folder" tick box. When trying to copy the Application folder to the external SSD, it copies nothing from the original folder, only 16kB. No method of copying I've tried worked. Also, in 06:44 you're already signed into your Apple account, when you haven't said one should do that yet. Subsequently, if you haven't signed in, there's also no Library folder in the root directory of the external SSD yet.
Hi Lance, you seem very knowledgable about Mini M4, can you do a video explaining why I spent ages making a Memoji but it never shows on the Lock screen.
Is it possible to make a video of how to swap the data from a MacBook Pro to the Mac mini with an external SSD setup? I did the first video you made and it was very helpful. Now I am just confused as to how to get my MBP (2TB) data (350GB used) to the MM (256GB) since I have it on a 2TB SSD drive.
Looks cool! But got a bit of a dummy question - what if you don’t change the home folder, but just the applications folder? Format external drive, create an “Applications” folder there and choose the external drive as apps folder in App Store settings, keeping home folder on internal. Is it possible? It will save less gigs, but maybe still manageable, since most of the time apps take the most storage?
apps rarely take up the most storage. it usually photos and videos. people don't get new apps on a daily basis, but every day you get more email, take more pictures, generate new documents, etc.
@ makes sense. Did not consider that. But at the same time you can just move pictures and docs to the external drive manually if you feel the space is getting tight. Though making it automatically with setting home folder is more convenient. Have a M3 Pro MacBook Pro for a year now and I haven’t filled even half of the drive. Though am using the machine for browsing, email and a bit of coding. Maybe I am not just synced with the iPhone to store photos
So I tried encrypting the external drive and got it all working. The speeds are really pretty much the same maybe a little slower on the right speeds but what I had to do was format and encrypt the Drive first in APFS encrypted then I copied over my home folder, etc. activated it and logged into it and make sure to hit the checkbox to remember password and keychain. And this is the trick to getting it working. You have to log out of the external user log into your backup user and the driver will ask you for the password again put in the password and check the keychain box then log out of the internal user don’t shut down and login to the external user Then you can reboot and it should remember the password from then on out.
Thanks for the response. To be clear, Step 1: Format and encrypt in APFS. Step 2: copy home folder to external. Step 3: Change to active home folder to external and reboot.. enter and remember password and check keychain??? step 4. Logout and login again? I’m not absolutely clear about Step 3 and 4.
SOME IMPORTANT NOTES: FYI the 512 SSD option is twice as fast on the write speeds but not the read speeds. The 512 is 4000MBs write - the 256 is 2000MBs write , both are 3000MB read. Also Apps like Pro Tools get installed to All Users and the apps don't take up that much space so don't try and move apps for all users into the external applications folder, I would test apps on a one by one bases when moved externally. You can install their sound libraries samples etc on to the external drive and point the apps to them.
And the speed difference only translates to marginal performance gains in all but a very few cases anyway. Unless you're moving 50GB files around all the time, you're not even going to notice the difference. It's all very fast once you get to 2000 MB/s.
I tested the boot time of an 8GB Windows 11 virtual machine using VMware on the internal SSD and an external SSD with a top speed of 1000MB/s, and the latter was only one second slower -- 10 seconds vs 9 seconds.
@@EnglishMike👍
@@MacSoundSolutions I had read about that but opted to step up the unified memory a notch instead. I’ve been working with a 2018 MBP 15” with 1TB drive and loads of memory but it struggles with photoshop and Topaz AI tasks. My wife’s 2022 MacBook Air 15” M2 standard build 512 MB mops floor with it performance wise. Excited to put my new mini to work. My first computer was an EPSON with an 8088 cpu. It cost around CDN$2200 in 1986, 30 MB hard drive and two floppy disks, monochrome monitor
Does this work with a 4TB Xternal drive as well or is it limited to 2TB? And can you transfer/migrate everything from your M2 to the new M4 with xternal drive you've setup so you don't have to reinstall everything again?...Sorry for all the questions TY so much for al the NF0!!
Also DOes it effect the speed for Audio recording from DAW's using the xternal drive or does the Mini think that the xternal is an internal and works as if it is an internal? FYI I'm Using UAD Apollo x6's.....TY for the vids
I picked up a used mac for my 15yo daughter to use garageband. I cant tell you how helpful your videos are to someone who has been using Windows for 20+ years. I have learned alot from your videos and I am now building a hackintosh for myself without messing up her mac. I appreciate the info!
At 12:50 you illustrate how one user can’t see into another’s home folders, as expected. Can you test whether these privileges hold for the home folders you copied to the external?
If you have multiple people using your computer you would want this privacy feature to be in place on all their external folders.
@@kevinkendall2182they are not accessible by other users on the same Mac. You can also encrypt the external drive, but there is a small work around.
@@maridaudran thanks for the kind words much appreciated!
This tutorial is GOLDEN. I have watched dozens of other videos explaining basically the same thing but with a lot of technical background that I feel are not necessary. I trust Lance as a savvy user, as I feel I am, but I am not as technically proficient as a lot of guys out there. I just need to set things up quickly and efficiently without paying Apple more than necessary. Thanks Lance.
Some good info here, thanks. Setting up and transferring Mac data isn't always fun. I may have to get a new machine and give this a try.
just bought my M4 base model yesterday. follow this tutorial and everything runs smooth. this is my first mac OS device btw. yay!
Picked base model this week. Bestbuy Black Friday sale have good deals on external SSD this week. Picked up Crucial X10 2 TB SSD for 150$. Read up to 2k MB but whatever. Fast enough for what I used it for. I followed Lance's tips. When installing, I dragged the installer icon to the Application folder on external drive. Show up in Launchpad automatically. Loved the size. I can take it with me when I'm traveling. Plugged to hotel's room tv.
Awesome video! If anyone is experiencing their Mac mini m4 crashing and restarting after connecting an external drive, here's something that might help. Sometimes, simply preventing disk sleep from the settings menu isn’t enough to stop it from sleeping and I suspect this could be the issue I was having, and what worked for me was entering the following commands in Terminal:
sudo pmset -a disksleep 0
sudo pmset -a sleep 0
After applying these, my Mac mini hasn’t crashed so far (still testing, but fingers crossed!). Hope this helps someone out there!
I will note it down in case I come across it next time. Thanks.
Horrible, this is a fix most people won't be able to implement....
It happened again, not long ago after my "fix." I've tried a myriad of different things that so far till now seem to hopefully have worked again. Here are a couple to mention:
1. Prevented the external nvme enclosure drive from being indexed by spotlight.
2. Increased the time it takes for the display to turn off after a screen saver becomes active to 5 minutes or 10 minutes.
The second suggestion with the display setting came from a forum post where someone was having seemingly the exact same issue as I did and someone else suggested it was a display or GPU issue (even though they didn't mention an external drive being an issue). When my mac would recover from the crash/restart, I would take the error log and ask ChatGPT about it, and it responds, claiming it's a kernel panic related to the display or GPU (Currently using HDMI + 4k high refresh rate monitor).
@@Sarsour_ so what is the issue, I can sleep two external drives and no crashes. But you can just set the settings for drives to not sleep when the display sleeps if you want.
@MacSoundSolutions It seems like the issue has been resolved so far after my last update mentioned about increasing the screen's time to switch off after a screen saver to 5 minutes, which is what I set it at. That was also a solution I read off an apple forum thread, as I mentioned.
The sleep prevention settings from the settings menu and the terminal command weren't enough to solve it for my case in particular, so hopefully this helps anybody who might ever come across the issue, though I should probably document these suggestions in a forum post.
This worked like a charm. I added a 1TB SSD . external SSD is faster than internal 256GB
Ive never seen a more concise and to the point video, truly a masterpiece of a tutorial! Especially since its basic use case and not weird one off test/use case. Really appreciate the work you put into this!
@@zeldfep thanks!
Got mine yesterday. Moved mail to external with symlink to original folder, photo library external, steam library external and whiskey bottles external. Easy enough. App Store is also configured to put >1 GB apps to external.
Lance, you can get your external drive’s apps to automatically appear in the Launchpad by placing a symlink of the external drive’s Applications folder in your user folder.
As a new Mac user, would you please expand on this further.
Google: terminal command for creating symlinks. Will explain everything in a step by step
I do the same with mail, have a lot of mailboxes, have the main mail library folder symlinked to the external drive. And photo library placed to external too.
This didn't work for me. I tried it just a few minutes ago. I created an alias to Applications folder on my external drive, moved the alias to my home folder (also on the external drive), and then renamed the alias to "Applications"
@@mghumphrey Indeed, an alias will not work. You have to use Terminal to create a symlink.
Great stuff! You are helping a lot of folks beat Apple scam with their ridiculous upgrade prices. This is Gold. Thanks a lot.
Apple is scamming you with the upgrades, but also gives you the best deal in computing since forever with the base model. Give and take.
That's the first actually helpful video on how to use your external storage in the most optimal way. I had to mess with sym-links a lot to make something work and if you know anything about MacOS this can get sloppy fast. This information is a lifesaver!
when i got my mac mini base model i installed sequoia to my 2 tb NMVe external and used that as my drive works a treat
Yes works well, you just can’t use Apple intelligence. But some folks would rather not use it.
@@MacSoundSolutions There really isn't much worth using yet.
@@EnglishMike agreed just pointing it out
@@MacSoundSolutions ApplePay will also not work.
Amazing! as a IT admin, I really appreceiate your detailed steps for the end user, some many just assume the user know what they meant, etc.
If you live within a 2 hr drive of a Microcenter, these have been $499 for over a week. Atlanta stores restocked 27+ units today, spread across 2 stores. Again $499 for over a week now. If using MICROCENTER’s credit card, $475 before tax.
$500 at amazon now and costco, BB might price match = $499
Great video. It helped me understand the Mac file system. I had my documents and desktop folders on my iCloud and wanted it on my Mac. This helped me so much 🙏🙏
Excellent work, thank you very much for taking the time to delve into this, Very cool! BTW, B&H Photo has the Mini in stock and is asking $560, and if you have their payboo credit card you save the tax, so you pay $20 more but they ship now instead of a couple of weeks later...
Hello, me again, nice to see that you are taking all the risks we do not want to take
I haven't bought my Apple mini yet, I downloaded your video and take notes on every thing you do. You are a fast thinker, I am not. Many thanks for all the info.
Hey Lance. I followed your guide and have some other insight to offer based on my experience thus far. I use encrypted APFS. This is a little tricky because MacOS no longer prompts for an APFS password at boot up on Apple Silicon Macs. It needs to be pre-mounted. The way I was able to work around that limitation was to use the secondary admin user I created to login first, mount the external drive with my home directory on it under that user, and then lock the screen and login as me from the lock screen.
The other thing I did was to hookup a 43" LG 4K UHD TV as the display and set the resolution down from the native 3840x2160 to 2560x1440 - and it looks STUNNING with retina-like smoothness. Not bad for a TV I paid $189 for.
I hope some find this helpful. Cheers!
@@6StringPassion. you are spot on I did same today, if you set the internal user to auto login with the encrypted drive in its keychain you only have to type the password once to login the external user and bingo.
@@MacSoundSolutions COOL! Thx.
@@MacSoundSolutionshi lance, I’m awfully sorry for the silly question (I am far from adept)… I also set my external as encrypted and now cannot log in. I know it’s a pain but could you walk me through how to solve this as I now cannot log in with or without my external disk plugged in?
@@TheItalianNomad new video on this posted today or tomorrow. Basically you need to have the internal backup user administrator account. Log into that on boot, the encrypted drive will ask for its password, click save in keychain, them you can switch users even log out of the internal at this point, but when ever you boot up you have to log into the internal user first and the encrypted drive will mount because its now in the keychain of the internal user and then just switch to the external user, it's a little bit of a pain but if you don't shut down often then its not a major big issue.
@@MacSoundSolutions thank you!
Thanks!
Much appreciated King!
Glad to see someone mention the little things that can trip you up...
I would also like to mention the new Mac Mini also has upgradeable storage with 2 slots in each one. Now both drives are diffrent and also they need to come out of another Mac Mini and you also need a DFU Restore from another Mac to make it work :)
Great video, simple, concise but thorough, thank you! I've been using a Mac for decades but with how often Apple changes things around have completely lost touch on how to do this.
@MacSoundSolutions Fantastic videos Lance! And thanks to ALL who have been contributing info to Lance! These videos are really sharing something important and needed. So happy to see all the updates on processes Lance. THANK YOU ROCK --AND-- COMPUTER STAR!!!!! 🤩🤩🤩
Great video 👏 I can’t believe I haven’t come across your channel before. As a long time Mac user (since the late 1990’s), and a long-time IT professional, I can appreciate the work you’ve put into creating very useful videos like this! I’m just trying to decide what to do with my 12+ year old Mac Mini since I upgraded to the M1 Mac Mini a few years ago, since these Mac products just keep going and going like the energizer bunny 😂
A helpful tip: order the Zike drive enclosure allowing plenty of time; it ships from Hong Kong and takes awhile, depending on where you live. I have my Mini and NVMe all ready to go, but still waiting for Zike .... yike!
Sorry seems they’re a bit back ordered due to my videos 😅 I will send them an email to see what the word is.
@@MacSoundSolutions Update. Zike drive enclosure arrived today (Vancouver, Washington). It took a total of 13 days from the order date, which I don't think is too bad for all the way from Honk Honk. For folks ordering one, I'd allow two weeks delivery time in the U.S. to be on the safe side. The enclosure looks fantastic and is well made.
Personally, I prefer to leave the Home directory on the main drive. And create symlinks for the large stuff out. Example Photos, Music, Movies, Applications and if needed Library. That makes sure what you need is on the external drive, but the Home directory is always part of the main drive.
Its easier to implement, just copy and symlinks. Its also much easier from a time-machine backup-restore perspective. You can be up and running quickly in case of a restore.
But anyway, really really good tutorial for a lot of folks.
@@asterix908 thanks and sure I use sym links with my Mac Pro. TimeMachine is very easy to setup with this method, but each to his own, for those with the base model this is a good alternative and works well and enabling a lot more space for iCloud backups etc, not everyone is comfortable using terminal to creat sym links.
You should make a video. Because lots of people do not know what that means.
Thank you for this! Today I am ordering my Mac Mini M4. Based on your two videos, I have bought a 2TB Samsung Thunderbolt 4 and enclosure and will be following your 10 step transfer process. Extremely helpful and oh so timely! Many thanks, like and a sub for you today.
The internal drive is going to be replaceable at some point, since it isn't soldered in. I am sure there will be 3rd party inexpensive upgrades at some point.
3rd party yes. inexpensive, not so fast. may be in 3 years.
Oh man! This is great stuff! This is exactly what I was looking for. I have yet to buy the Mac mini as I am still struggling with which configuration to choose. That could save me quite a bit of money. Just subscribed.
Costco has the base M4 Mini for $499 until early December - got one yesterday ☺️
Excellent tutorial Lance! Based on what I’ve watch, you are top notch for clarity. Best!
Another approach to moving the home folder on new machines is to make the first account you create the “Backup Account” and when creating a new admin account on “Users & Groups” you also change the home folder so the first login on that account will already be in the external folder.
@@soniccinos good point but I don’t think you have access to the advanced options until you creat the user on the internal drive, will have look.
Great video! I was tempted to at least bump internal to 512gb, but with this method the internal is basically just a boot disc so no need!
Yeah that’s true, the 256 is still a lot slower than the 512 but still fast enough. I bumped it up to 512GB because after all some data will always be written on it so for longevity it will probably make a difference
@jooplin I've seen people do speed tests showing 256 is the same speed is 512 for this generation. I thought it was just M2 that they took away the RAID for the 256 model?!
@@aerobrain2001 hmm maybe I need to check again, but I saw one guy using the BlackMagic Disk test and it was roughly half the speed of the 512GB with the M4 Mac Mini, it has two chips now but that could just be because the 256GB was really full maybe?
@jooplin yeah could be, I'll need to double check myself as well. Watch so many different reviews it's definitely possible I've got muddled :-)
@@aerobrain2001 I am just thinking to myself, if you really try this approach with the home folder, than 250Gb maybe will last an easy 10 years. If I assume it's a premium quality SSD it could last about 150TBW, I think that's a very generous estimation. Could be trouble if you have consistently high workloads and will more often swap memory than maybe you could run into trouble in the future, also a faster SSD will make the memory swaps less noticable. Also the fresh new OS will get cluttered and you'll never know if the storage requirements for newer OS versions will get higher I personally would always second guess my 256GB choice if I had hiccups or any kind of trouble, so I went for the safe bet with 512GB. The memory upgrades aren't that steep if you order somewhere else than Apple. I got mine with 16GB and 512GB now for 763€, would have cost me 929€ in the Apple Store. Thanks for listening to my TED Talk
Nicely done. A very helpful properly detailed demo that can be super useful to so many to save money. For older minis and the Mac Studio maybe the Satechi hub is a good option to give you a base hub with USB-A ports and SD/microSD card slots with home drive in it. I'm sure there will something similar for the M4 mini form factor soon too.
I ordered mac mini 4 with 24 Ram & 512GB….. I will just use the external ssd for the apps,since apple already make the option for installing large apps on SSD…. Thanks a lot for
Nice and the 512 does get faster right speeds on the SSD and the 256. I originally thought they were the same but the 512 gets double the right speeds in the same speeds as the 256
I don’t know u never seen your videos till this one and I subbed great video boom!! All the way from the cribbean island of Trinidad and Tobago 🇹🇹
I went to Trinidad when I was a kid :)
Was it for carnival
@@tichaonanhlangano1426 was on my way to Granada
Amazing video, I almost went for more internal storage but this is confirming I'll just get an m.2 enclosure! Thanks :)
Thanks for this no BS video - just the information I needed! New subscriber here 😉
Wow, lots of good stuff in there. Lots of areas covered that I have touched in the past, but a few gems in there that I didn't know about. I'll definitely review this video again if/when I get my next mac mini or studio or imac (probably in a year or two). Thanks for doing this and for all the good information/tricks/hints.
5:17 - the Internal "Home folder" -- and the External "Home folder" side by side. 5:33 - "Now we have to go to System Prefs to make our External Home folder become the Active one. (go to: 9:04 )
These video's have been great! I have the m4 256gb. The home folders are now running off the the external drive. Of which runs faster than the internal. Thank you for making great videos on this. Very simple to follow! 👍
Yes I was surprised I was getting better speeds externally, pretty sweet. Thanks!
This is really excellent. I am awaiting a new Mac mini 4 and am thinking about how to set it up so this has been a big help. Thanks
People shouldn’t have to do this. Apple needs to change how much they charge for storage.
Apple button guy needs to patch this with a future update.
Sure
People needs to stop buying Apple laptops.
@ why?
Getting a mac mini in a couple of weeks, and very much looking forward to setting it up supported by your excellent videos on the subject. Much appreciated my man 🤗
Can’t wait to get my new Mac mini and do this process 😌☺️😊 your videos are on point. Thank you for what you do!
I used your part two of how to move your home folder to an external hard drive on my new Mac mini for base thank you.
Eagerly awaiting the video where you describe how to migrate data from your old Mac onto an external drive for the M4 Mac mini.
Coming out today!
The heading is misleading because this is just using an external for expansion.
HOWEVER, the way in which it is done is masterly. Subscribed.
Amazon is back-ordered until after Christmas. Also, Costco has even better prices but they are all out of stock until December, or later. Seems the Minis is flying off the shelves.
I’m glad I ordered a week after launch (saw reviews etc) and already have mine. Great piece of hardware, shame on Apple to include 256 GB SSDs in 2024… (or they could just ask 50€ for the upgrade, that is what costs a full drive with controller, so the extra 256 GB without a controller for Apple must cost 10€ or so (at most…)
@@ricarmig The people who upgraded are paying the Apple tax for you :)
As a Windows user who is deciding to switch to Mac, this is a very useful and detailed explanation. Loved it. Thanks 🙏🏽
Subscribed ✅
Stick to cricket..
Mac is not for you pjt
@@Unacceptable. Why bro?
Think i will put two accounts on mine. a small local admin one i use rarely. and a large external one for my main account. so i can always get it if the external isn’t available
That’s a great idea
Wow…. This You tube channel is great. I am totally going to have to come back to these videos. So much good stuff here.
never owned a mac, but still enjoyed watching it. maybe I'll buy a mac
switched 20yrs ago an never went back even though use windows suite 90% of time. microsoft just runs infinitely better with no issues on apple hardware with opencore. 2009 mbp causes zero issues compared to brand new multi thousand pc
@@RichieKeane Funny, there was a guy on another comment thread that said he needed to run a Windows 11 virtual machine on his macOS system because the macOS version of MS Office had issues with the stuff he was doing...
@@EnglishMikeruns as normal win 10?11 pc just pick at the boot screen if you use olcp
Wow, this was exactly what I was looking for, thank you for this detailed guide. As a developer I need the extra space for all my docker sh*t and the 512 just don't cut it.
i used ur set up on my new base mac mini - external ssd 2tb : after logging in to icloud , if any one has issues with server apps after ie app store , apple tv etc... just log out icloud and re log in in resolves it , thx for ur easy set up
Thanks!
Thanks Dr!
@@MacSoundSolutions So Will your second video you mentioned at the beginning of this one on how to make this move if you already did what I did?
@ watch part 2 Buy the Base Storage and do this! Move your Home folder to an external drive PART 2
ruclips.net/video/YFuOcsi_eFY/видео.html
Does Apple Intelligence still work? I know if you put the operating system completely on an external drive. It will not. Will it work with just the home folder moved?
Yes it works guess I should have mentioned that again in this video but did on previous video.
I had Best Buy price match Apple's $500 education pricing. Its amazing, I might buy another for a server, great tutorial. Subbed
Nice!
Got my Mac mini (base Model, my first Mac) on Thursday for the full price @ 699,- Euro. There are cheaper options with prices below 600,- Euros but than delivery will take ages - and I wanted my Mini on that day! I had a 1 TB SSD lying around so I plugged that to the Mini and it is working fine. Using RISC OS and Windows since the Mid 1990 OSX was (and is) quite a difference but meanwhile I got along. Well, except for the some more unique Keyboard setting (refresh is on what key?)... On the other hand i was amazingly surprised how easy OSX connected with my existing hardware, specially my Canon printer/scanner. No comparison with windows.
I think the base Mini is a great device and offers much value for the Euro. Sadly the upgrade prices are just insane.
Thanks for the very detailed explanation! Could you also show us how to Time Machine your HomeX?
Will do in the next video
Thank you for letting us know about the Amazon special, I just placed my order and although it will take a few weeks to arrive the total with taxes and coupon applied was $541.26, that's almost a $100 savings.
Hi, I see the discounted price in Amazon but how did you add the coupon for additional $59?
@@Jgonzalezjuy1 At the time to checkout the item it popped up right there under "payment method" right above where you add your reward points and I applied it. I wonder if you have to be a Prime member to get the added discount?
@@Jgonzalezjuy1 Not sure if my other reply made it. At the time that you're in the checkout section right there under :payment method" it popped up for me right above where the rewards points are located.
Really helpful video, I do plan to get the mac mini m4 256gb next year sometime when I get enough for it. I currently use a gaming pc I built a couple years ago but this new mac mini might be something I can use on the side.
It's getting better and better! Thank you sir.
Jaw dropping, it's time for me to upgrade and i'm looking at this very closely. In fact i was waiting for the Mac Studio M4 because of the reported fan noise with the Mac Mini M4 Pro. I use Protools Ultimate with HD Native and HD i/o...
Nice tutorial, didn’t know you could do this, thanks for sharing
Looks like you are solely responsible for Amazon and Costco selling out. Great work!
Amazing, thank you very much for all you great work, and to the coffeemaker 😉🙏🥰.
Best regards from Sweden
0:11 thats what my girl says.
Ain’t no way LOL
I can't tell you how much I appreciate you making this video. Thank You! 👍
This is a video worth savings. It’s saved to watch again. I just Subscribed.
nice! I wish I would have seen this before ordering MacBooks...
This video is AMAZING! Thank you so much!
I’m curious if you move the home folder onto an external drive, if the external drive dies on you, and you get a new drive then give it the same name, will the Time Machine backup recognise the new drive as the right location to restore your data to?
I believe it will, I’m going to check out Time Machine and do a video on it very soon, but I already know you can back up the external drive combined with the internal and I believe you could just copy the home folder on Time Machine to the new drive and then activate it
@@MacSoundSolutionsThanks mate!
Which drive is used for swap memory with this setup?
I asked ChatGPT ;) It would affect my choice for 256 vs 512GB version. Maybe someone can corroborate this but it seems correct to me:
Which drive is used for swap memory when you use the Mac mini m4 with the home folder and all non Apple apps moved to an external nvme 40GB drive? Is it the internal drive or the external drive? I’m asking because if it’s the external drive I won’t need to buy the 512GB version but am set with the 256GB version. I can then use that cash to get more RAM instead, like 24GB instead of the base version’s 16GB.
Answer:
When using a Mac Mini M4 with the home folder and non-Apple apps moved to an external NVMe SSD, the decision of where macOS uses swap memory depends on how the system handles the external and internal drives.
How macOS Handles Swap Memory
1. Swap Memory Basics:
• macOS uses the internal SSD by default for swap memory because it’s tightly integrated into the Apple Silicon architecture.
• Swap memory is critical for system performance when your RAM is fully utilized. Apple optimizes the internal SSD for this task because of its high speed and reliability.
2. Moving the Home Folder to an External Drive:
• While your home folder and application data are stored on the external drive, macOS still uses the internal SSD for swap memory.
• External NVMe drives are not used for swap memory, even if the external drive is fast and has ample free space. macOS prioritizes the internal SSD for this task because of its secure and low-latency connection to the system.
3. Why the Internal SSD Is Critical for Swap:
• The internal SSD is integrated into the system for macOS operations, including virtual memory and swap.
• Thunderbolt connections, while fast, have higher latency compared to the direct connection of the internal SSD.
Recommendation Based on Setup
• 256GB Internal SSD with 24GB RAM:
• If you increase the RAM to 24GB, macOS will use less swap memory overall, making the 256GB internal SSD sufficient for system tasks.
• Your external NVMe can handle the majority of storage needs, including the home folder and applications.
• 512GB Internal SSD with 16GB RAM:
• If you stay with 16GB RAM, the internal SSD will need to handle more swap activity, and the 512GB version will provide better durability (more NAND chips) and faster speeds for intensive tasks.
Verdict
• If swap memory stays on the internal SSD (which it does), upgrading to 24GB RAM will reduce swap usage, making the 256GB SSD + external NVMe a practical setup.
• If you often run memory-intensive tasks (e.g., video editing, large simulations), the extra RAM will benefit you more than the additional internal SSD space.
Summary:
Investing in 24GB RAM with the 256GB SSD + external NVMe is a better option if your workflow involves heavy multitasking but doesn’t require excessive internal storage.
macOS always uses the swap memory file on the boot drive. So, in this example, the swap memory will be written to the internal SSD since that's still the boot drive.
@@MutantWorm This is why you should never depend on ChatGPT. It's mostly accurate, but the gains are marginal at best. Assuming you keep your 256GB drive under 60% full, that's more than enough to maximize the SSD's performance and durability. The speed difference for the swapper's activity is not even going to be noticeable between 256GB and 512GB. The extra bandwidth of the larger drive is only useful for copying very large amounts of data (e.g. 50GB or more on a regular basis) which is what your fast TB4 external drive is for.
You only need more memory if the memory pressure goes into the red and maybe the yellow. If it stays in the green, then upgrading the RAM or the SSD will do next to nothing for you in terms of performance. A fast Thunderbolt 4 SSD solution is by far the cheaper option and you won't notice any slowdown.
I tested the boot time of my 8GB Windows 11 VM on the internal drive and a "slow" (1000MB/s) external SSD. The internal took 9 seconds, the "slow" external took 10 seconds. If I had used a fast PCIe Gen 4 drive instead, there would have been no difference.
And unless you're a very heavy user, there is no way you're going to wear out your internal SSD in less than 10 years, and probably not even 15 years, especially if you're using an external drive for your home folder.
Ok. New sub on the basis of your last 3 videos. You obviously know what you are doing and I dont but I think I might try this. Hopefully I wont trash the mini. Coming from windows, where I didnt know what I was doing either. Seems as though I will need to max out the caffeine 👍
What is the advantage to doing this vs booting from an external SSD? I boot from an external on my M1 Mac mini and don't even touch the internal drive...Great Video !!
Can you also unplug the drive and start the mac mini. So that we can see what happens and how can we login to the back up user account.
with no home folder, it will not start
Thanks for the great video, I am definitely going to do exactly the same. Question is, what would happen if the external drive goes bad? What are the options to keep the data safe other than time machine backups?
@@ibs37i anti virus, little snitch, vpn or clone your drive with chrono sync
Can we unplug the external drive or change the external drive after making it our home folder if yes will it have any repercussions?
Yes, you can but of course you want to have that back up user because if your drive is not attached and you go to login to the external home account, you will have issues so you need a back up internal administrative user so you can log into your Mac when the external drive is not connected
@MacSoundSolutions so if the internal drive user account is present and the external drive is disconnected will it automatically switch back to using the internal one?
@@rajsubhodI think that you have to login to the admin backup account and change the home path
Hi, thank you so much for your videos. I have been watching them and it help me set up my external SSD. I was able to encrypt the drive and like you said when you restart the Mac it won't recognize it. The trick around is to log in into the back up user then enter the password for the external SSD then Lock Screen ( Do Not Log Out) and log into the main user and it works. Then once you are in if you want you can log out of the back up user but not necessary.
@@Gokoutao yes correct just posted my video on this.
@@MacSoundSolutions Awesome...I am gonna watch it! lol
IDK Why I watched this but I enjoyed it.
Apart from the faster speed of the external SSD, why not install macOS on a fast external SSD and boot the Mac mini from it? Are there any known problems with this, and would it work properly? For example, I'm in music production and want to go this route with an external 4TB SSD, as the libraries from Native Instruments, UVI, Arturia, and so on are massive. // edit: Ok, I just watched the other video on the channel that different functionalities won't work when booting from an external drive. The best choice is to move the home folder to an external drive or all music-related libraries to an external drive.
There is one. Apple Intelligence doesn't work if you boot externally, at least for now. No idea if that limitation will ever change, though, and I don't see much need for using it yet, anyway...
@@alexraider23 Not sure how important that is, given it's not a mobile device. Most people who have ApplePay will have their iPhone on their desk!
11:28 - ADD new Administrative User, as fail-safe step
Have you been able to figure out how to encrypt the external drive with all of your personal info and pictures on it? When you do, it won’t mount. I ended up moving my home folder back to the internal drive and then using the external one as an overflow drive for large items like my 400gb photos library. Encrypting this drive is not a problem since it isn’t required at startup and mounts once logged in.
Will try it, the drive needs to be setup first APFS encrypted as apposed to encrypting after and added to the admin keychain.
@@MacSoundSolutions, thanks! Interested to see how that turns out. I don’t think I tried it that way. Wonder if the keychain the password gets saved to though might be in the user folder which is then on the encrypted drive. Looking forward to what you find out!
Why move anything?. Why not set up the internal admin account first? When logged into this, setup your main user account and then change the home folder location before even logging into it. Then when you log in to your proper account for the first time, everything is created on the external drive from the very start. No need to move anything. I assume this will work, I don’t see why not.
good one but need proof to see if it work
@ I want to try this, but I set mine up to boot entirely off the external drive. I want to change it so it uses the internal drive with the user folder on the external, but I’d want to clone the external drive first in case I want to go back, and I don’t have a drive big enough (my external is 4TB).
It also seems counterproductive to move applications to an external drive when the internal is much faster. You’d need a LOT of apps to fill the 256GB internal drive. Having user data on the external is fine though. I though this video would be about a hardware mod, not just plugging another drive in 😁
@@Stabby666 the external is faster than the base internal 256GB. Plus, running the OS on an external drive means Apple Intelligence and Apple Pay don’t work (which I didn’t know when setting up).
I’m actually doing a Time Machine backup now and will try my method and report back.
Oh - also, I noticed my idle power consumption was a little higher than others were reporting, which I assume is due to the OS being on an external drive. Hopefully with the OS on the internal drive, idle power use will be reduced.
@ if an external drive is faster than the internal then that’s a terrible design I think. The PCI-E bus should be the fastest way to transfer data so maybe it’s cheaper controller chips or something.
Thanks Lance. You actually do 'rock'. 😉
Thank you! This was a really informative video, and the explanation was super clear!!!!
Great JOB, THANKS. I was unable to copy my apps over to the new external drive, only shortcuts appeared. Thoughts?
Yes copy the whole applications folder don’t open it and drag the apps over. So you don’t need to creat an app folder just copy the whole app folder from the internal to the external.
I got a Msi M482 for cheaper than the teamgroup so i went with that also a Maiwo External was half the price of the Zike drive, and also works without a hitch. with full speed
Very solid computer information on a music channel. Thanks very much!
I did this on my M4 mini that I'd been using for a week, everything moved over without any issues
Can you show us how to do iPhone backups on external drive like this too.
If you setup the home folder this way on the external drive all your iOS backups will go to the external user library folder in the home folder.
Grab a RayCue Type-C Stand & Hub with NVMe/ M.2 SATA SSD Enclosure for 2024 Mac Mini
To expand on rorywalter's very important question below, how do backups and restore work with this setup?
No way I'm doing this if I can't have functional backups! If you use Time Machine will it allow the backup data to be restored to another replacement disk, and will the new paths allow projects like in Logic to work? If you don't use Time Machine, can you copy the external drive, and then maybe rename the copy to the externals name if the original external fails? Can Superduper or Carbon Copy function for backups?
How does backup/restore work - if it does at all. After all, this is not something Apple is encouraging us to do, as they would much rather sell us super expensive storage options!
Lance, maybe you could answer these questions in the next video where you show how to move data? Or do a separate video on the backup/ restore issue, where you actually test this out?
Plan on it new video posting today which covers a lot of it. You can do a time machine backup of everything g external and internal no pro. But I will make a time machine dedicated video todays video uses migration from a time machine backup to transfer your data onto a new mini.
Thanks for your videos. I did add an external 1TB SSD to my M4 Mini, and migrated my home folder to it and activated it, however, I cannot copy ANY applications from my internal drive to my new external drive. I tried downloading a new app from the Mac App Store and it loaded onto the internal hard disk, without giving me any options to install it on the new external drive. I also cannot delete non-systems apps from the Applications folder on the internal drive, despite it not being locked and that it has Read/Write permissions for "Everyone". This smells like a permissions problem but I cannot see what it is
You need to be logged into the external account and then just drag and drop the applications folder from the internal drive to the external drive and if that doesn’t work, log back into your internal backup user and do the same thing. Don’t copy the individual applications copy the whole folder
I had the exact same issue. Logging into the backup account to delete apps worked for me! Many Thanks!
@@2epete I have the same issue to delete non apple apps, so what did we do wrong, why are only a few having this problem? Thanks
@ I’ll leave it to the Mac experts to answer what we could be doing to cause the issue, I was happy to learn all you need to do is log in to he backup account to delete them from the system hard drive.
@@mattmc190 you need to log into an internal administrator account to delete the internal apps. If you didn’t make one you can easily add it now then delete the apps.
No matter what I try, my Finder is not showing the "Show Library Folder" tick box.
When trying to copy the Application folder to the external SSD, it copies nothing from the original folder, only 16kB. No method of copying I've tried worked.
Also, in 06:44 you're already signed into your Apple account, when you haven't said one should do that yet. Subsequently, if you haven't signed in, there's also no Library folder in the root directory of the external SSD yet.
Hi Lance, you seem very knowledgable about Mini M4, can you do a video explaining why I spent ages making a Memoji but it never shows on the Lock screen.
Is it possible to make a video of how to swap the data from a MacBook Pro to the Mac mini with an external SSD setup? I did the first video you made and it was very helpful. Now I am just confused as to how to get my MBP (2TB) data (350GB used) to the MM (256GB) since I have it on a 2TB SSD drive.
Posting today
Looks cool! But got a bit of a dummy question - what if you don’t change the home folder, but just the applications folder? Format external drive, create an “Applications” folder there and choose the external drive as apps folder in App Store settings, keeping home folder on internal. Is it possible? It will save less gigs, but maybe still manageable, since most of the time apps take the most storage?
apps rarely take up the most storage. it usually photos and videos. people don't get new apps on a daily basis, but every day you get more email, take more pictures, generate new documents, etc.
@ makes sense. Did not consider that. But at the same time you can just move pictures and docs to the external drive manually if you feel the space is getting tight. Though making it automatically with setting home folder is more convenient. Have a M3 Pro MacBook Pro for a year now and I haven’t filled even half of the drive. Though am using the machine for browsing, email and a bit of coding. Maybe I am not just synced with the iPhone to store photos
May I know if it possible to encrypt the external Home drive? Will the steps be any different and will it slow down the data transfer?
So I tried encrypting the external drive and got it all working. The speeds are really pretty much the same maybe a little slower on the right speeds but what I had to do was format and encrypt the Drive first in APFS encrypted then I copied over my home folder, etc. activated it and logged into it and make sure to hit the checkbox to remember password and keychain. And this is the trick to getting it working. You have to log out of the external user log into your backup user and the driver will ask you for the password again put in the password and check the keychain box then log out of the internal user don’t shut down and login to the external user Then you can reboot and it should remember the password from then on out.
Thanks for the response. To be clear, Step 1: Format and encrypt in APFS. Step 2: copy home folder to external. Step 3: Change to active home folder to external and reboot.. enter and remember password and check keychain??? step 4. Logout and login again? I’m not absolutely clear about Step 3 and 4.