Apple silicon boot from USB?

[DrGreenCat]

Can someone who already received an M1 mac, confirm that they can still boot (macOS) from USB rather than the internal SSD drive?
Thanks!

 

[cupcakes2000]

I can’t confirm it as I don’t own one, but I believe it’s been covered already that this is possible by choosing the ‘less secure’ route when setting the machine up, just like an intel machine already has in place.

 

[citivolus]

I just tried this and it works as expected. To enable it, here are the instructions from Apple's website:

• On a Mac with Apple silicon: Press and hold the power button until you see “Loading startup options.”

You will then see the available USB drives to boot from. Interestingly, they need to be plugged directly into the Mac and you cannot use a hub.

 

[DrGreenCat]

I just tried this and it works as expected. To enable it, here are the instructions from Apple's website:

• On a Mac with Apple silicon: Press and hold the power button until you see “Loading startup options.”

You will then see the available USB drives to boot from. Interestingly, they need to be plugged directly into the Mac and you cannot use a hub.

Thanks for testing it!

 

[fai0]

I just tried this and it works as expected. To enable it, here are the instructions from Apple's website:

• On a Mac with Apple silicon: Press and hold the power button until you see “Loading startup options.”

You will then see the available USB drives to boot from. Interestingly, they need to be plugged directly into the Mac and you cannot use a hub.

Just curious, your USB boot drive is another Big Sur installation? As I need to have one of this for OS failure situation. Thank you very much.

 

[citivolus]

Just curious, your USB boot drive is another Big Sur installation? As I need to have one of this for OS failure situation. Thank you very much.

Yes.

 

[Yebubbleman]

I can’t confirm it as I don’t own one, but I believe it’s been covered already that this is possible by choosing the ‘less secure’ route when setting the machine up, just like an intel machine already has in place.

Apple did say that you could change this setting per OS installation on Apple Silicon Macs and not have it be all-or-nothing the way it is on a T2 Intel Mac.