Anyway to turn external SSD into a "Fusion" drive

[vaxes]

Hi

My long suffering iMac died recently.
I am now using a late 2018 Mac mini but this only has a 256gb SSD.

I currently have about 2tb of data on my iCloud.
This wasn't an issue with my 3tb iMac but now on my mac mini I don't have enough internal storage to download all my iCloud files.

I can't find online but does anyone know if there is a way to get the mac to download my iCloud files not to the internal SSD but to my external SSD?

Thanks

-AE

 

[Regulus67]

I can't find online but does anyone know if there is a way to get the mac to download my iCloud files not to the internal SSD but to my external SSD?

Here is one answer to your request
move Home directory in Ventura

You do not want to create a fusion drive, that would create a lot of problems

 

[Fishrrman]

One more vote that you SHOULD NOT consider trying to create "an external" fusion drive.
That way lies danger (and possibly loss of your files).

If your internal drive isn't large enough, get an external USB3.1 gen2 SSD that IS "big enough".
I'd recommend either a Samsung t7 "shield", or a Crucial X-9.

Either of these will give you read speeds around 850-900MBps.

Having said that, you really don't want to BOOT FROM these drives (even though it would be a good idea to have a bootable OS on it in any case).

REASON WHY:
The internal drive is much MUCH faster.

You will quickly learn how to "delegate" files to where they need to be, most important stuff on the internal drive, larger (or un-needed) things on the external drive.

 

[JonnyMacx86]

It might be worth your while to put a macOS installation on an external SSD and boot from that instead. It still wouldn't be quite as fast as an internal drive, but you could use it to rescue your cloud files!