Bad experience installing Sonoma on external bootable HD

[jay968]

Sorry if this may have been discussed before but has anyone tried to install Sonoma on an external hard drive (not an SSD)?
I wanted to try Sonoma out without upgrading so I did so and I cannot understate how awful it was. Anything I did literally took an incredibly long time (sometimes several minutes) to do most anything including loading programs. Even booting up took almost 10 minutes each time I did so.
I'm using a Macbook Air 15" which runs very well with Ventura but Sonoma on the external? OMG!
To make matters worse, all the computer wanted to do if I chose the internal SSD (with Ventura on it) on bootup was go into recovery. No more option, just either boot with the external into Sonoma or go into recovery.
Luckily the recovery was quick and easy, presumable because I did have Ventura still intact on the internat SSD but OMG what happened?
So as I first asked, has anyone else tried installing Sonoma on an external physical HD? What was your experience, I am very curious.

 

[Fishrrman]

From a platter-based HDD, I'm surprised you got Sonoma to boot ... at all.

For the more-recent OS releases, you want an SSD.
Even a small one will do.
For "experimenting" with new OS releases, a 128gb or 256gb SATA SSD in a 2.5" enclosure would do (what I use myself).
You can pick up a 256gb SATA SSD for less than $25.
An enclosure like this will do:

ORICO 2.5'' USB C External Hard Drive Enclosure, SATA 3.0 to USB 3.1 Gen2 6Gbps Case for 2.5 Inch HDD/SSD Support Max 6TB with UASP Tool Free(2189C3)

ORICO 2.5'' USB C External Hard Drive Enclosure, SATA 3.0 to USB 3.1 Gen2 6Gbps Case for 2.5 Inch HDD/SSD Support Max 6TB with UASP Tool Free(2189C3)

www.amazon.com

 

[jay968]

From a platter-based HDD, I'm surprised you got Sonoma to boot ... at all.

For the more-recent OS releases, you want an SSD.
Even a small one will do.
For "experimenting" with new OS releases, a 128gb or 256gb SATA SSD in a 2.5" enclosure would do (what I use myself).
You can pick up a 256gb SATA SSD for less than $25.
An enclosure like this will do:

ORICO 2.5'' USB C External Hard Drive Enclosure, SATA 3.0 to USB 3.1 Gen2 6Gbps Case for 2.5 Inch HDD/SSD Support Max 6TB with UASP Tool Free(2189C3)

ORICO 2.5'' USB C External Hard Drive Enclosure, SATA 3.0 to USB 3.1 Gen2 6Gbps Case for 2.5 Inch HDD/SSD Support Max 6TB with UASP Tool Free(2189C3)

www.amazon.com

Thanks, I was hoping to hear something like that. However I am still perplexed by the fact that I couldn't just duel boot without having to go through a recovery on the Macbook Air. When I've duel booted in the past, I used to have the option of which drive to boot off of. Have they changed this?
Also, any experience with upgrading vs clean install onto a Macbook Pro or Air? I know it used to be much better to do a clean install. Is this still the preferred method?
Thanks

 

[Fishrrman]

"I am still perplexed by the fact that I couldn't just duel boot without having to go through a recovery on the Macbook Air. When I've duel booted in the past, I used to have the option of which drive to boot off of. Have they changed this?"

That's the way it is now.
Welcome to Apple Silicon.

"any experience with upgrading vs clean install onto a Macbook Pro or Air? I know it used to be much better to do a clean install. Is this still the preferred method?"

By "clean install", do you mean a complete erase of the internal drive, then a "brand-new" software install? (after which you restore your data).

I'm unsure whether you (as the user) can completely erase the internal drive on Apple Silicon white booted from "recovery". Perhaps others with more experience will reply.
(by "completely erase", I mean wipe off the secure system volume, everything, essentially taking the internal SSD down to "moment zero")

It may be necessary to create a bootable USB flashdrive, then boot from the flashdrive, and erase and then install the new OS that way.

But... I'm thinking that with the "secure system volume", upgrades will generally go fairly "cleanly". I'm wondering -- if during a major software upgrade -- if the SSV isn't completely "over-written" with an entirely new System image. Again, need the knowledge of others...

 

[Fishrrman]

(deleted, see above)

 

[chabig]

Also, any experience with upgrading vs clean install onto a Macbook Pro or Air?

With recent macOS releases, there is no difference between a clean install and an upgrade. Either way, the system volume would be identical down to the last bit. At every boot, the machine verifies via signature matching that nothing has changed. If even a single bit were out of place, the machine would not boot.

 

[jay968]

"I am still perplexed by the fact that I couldn't just duel boot without having to go through a recovery on the Macbook Air. When I've duel booted in the past, I used to have the option of which drive to boot off of. Have they changed this?"

That's the way it is now.
Welcome to Apple Silicon.

"any experience with upgrading vs clean install onto a Macbook Pro or Air? I know it used to be much better to do a clean install. Is this still the preferred method?"

By "clean install", do you mean a complete erase of the internal drive, then a "brand-new" software install? (after which you restore your data).

I'm unsure whether you (as the user) can completely erase the internal drive on Apple Silicon white booted from "recovery". Perhaps others with more experience will reply.
(by "completely erase", I mean wipe off the secure system volume, everything, essentially taking the internal SSD down to "moment zero")

It may be necessary to create a bootable USB flashdrive, then boot from the flashdrive, and erase and then install the new OS that way.

But... I'm thinking that with the "secure system volume", upgrades will generally go fairly "cleanly". I'm wondering -- if during a major software upgrade -- if the SSV isn't completely "over-written" with an entirely new System image. Again, need the knowledge of others...

Thanks.
Yes I did mean erasing the internal drive to do this clean install. I've created bootable USB drives in the past but I will wait to hear if anyone else can chime in on this. Seems there should be a way as I have read in various forums that others have done clean installs.

 

[jay968]

With recent macOS releases, there is no difference between a clean install and an upgrade. Either way, the system volume would be identical down to the last bit. At every boot, the machine verifies via signature matching that nothing has changed. If even a single bit were out of place, the machine would not boot.

Good to know..thank you!

 

[Buadhai]

Thanks.
Yes I did mean erasing the internal drive to do this clean install. I've created bootable USB drives in the past but I will wait to hear if anyone else can chime in on this. Seems there should be a way as I have read in various forums that others have done clean installs.

I have an M1 MBA. A couple of months ago I stopped being able to send iCloud email from it. I installed Sonoma on an external SSD (Samsung 1TB 970 EVO+ in an Orico enclosure). It booted fine and ran at least as fast as booting from the internal drive. It also could send iCloud email. I had no trouble booting from either the internal or external drive.

I decided the installation on the internal drive was faulty, so I used Erase All Content and Settings to wipe the internal drive. I then set the machine up as if it were new and used Migration Assistant to import my account and applications from an account I have on my wife's M1 iMac. I also used the Time Machine backup on the internal drive to restore stuff that wasn't on the account from which I migrated.

All of this was a time-consuming PITA, but it all works.

 

[jay968]

I have an M1 MBA. A couple of months ago I stopped being able to send iCloud email from it. I installed Sonoma on an external SSD (Samsung 1TB 970 EVO+ in an Orico enclosure). It booted fine and ran at least as fast as booting from the internal drive. It also could send iCloud email. I had no trouble booting from either the internal or external drive.

I decided the installation on the internal drive was faulty, so I used Erase All Content and Settings to wipe the internal drive. I then set the machine up as if it were new and used Migration Assistant to import my account and applications from an account I have on my wife's M1 iMac. I also used the Time Machine backup on the internal drive to restore stuff that wasn't on the account from which I migrated.

All of this was a time-consuming PITA, but it all works.

Well I bit the bullet and upgraded on top of Ventura. Everything seems to be working well. I honestly don't see much of an improvement (maybe slightly, more so in Safari) over Ventura but it's at least working well and some of the new features are good.