Can I move my external bootable drive from my MBPro to my iMac and use it on each depending if I'm home or on the road?

[Turnpike]

First, assume I have a good reason that I need/want to use my external hard drive between my MBPro and iMac. Both 2019 with the same fully updated version of OS. Please don't explore why or options to doing this, because it gets the thread off track and people forget the question.

I've been using a bootable external SSD on the iMac like this for years, external SSD plugged into the iMac with a regular USB wire. I know it's not the fastest set up, but it's been fine and works for me. Now with a MBPro that I can take with me (I'm gone for days at a time regularly giving a hospice nurse a break) can I boot up from the external SSD off my Macbook Pro, and then plug it back into my iMac when I'm home for the weekend?

Will that work, or is there a way that I can make that work? Thank you in advance.

 

[theorist9]

Since they are both 2019 Intel Macs on the same OS, you should be able to*. However, there may be some wrinkles, as described in this technical article from Bombich (the maker of Carbon Copy Cloner). They are talking about using a clone made on one machine to restore another machine, but it should also apply to what you'd like to do:

Can I back up one computer and use the clone to restore another computer? - Bombich Software

bombich.com

One potential issue is that the 2019 iMac doesn't have a T2 chip, but the 2019 MBP does. That could result in some incompatabilities.

Given you own both machines, my recommendation would be to test it on your MBP and see how well it works. If you are concerned doing this might corrupt your clone or your MBP, I'd make backups of both before proceeding (which you should have anyways).

[*Getting a bootable OS to work can be difficult with the most recent OS's (those having a Signed System Volume, i.e. MacOS 11 or later), but given that you've found it works on your iMac with your OS, you know that's not an issue for you.]

 

[Turnpike]

Oh NICE! I KNEW there'd be someone with an idea on this....and that CC article is right on the subject. Thanks so much! Just what I needed to know.