External bootable SSD/HDD as means to save the internal M1 SDD from degradation - effective ?

[crowe-t]

I was thinking of doing the same for a 2018 Mini to save the SDD. Is it just not worth all the effort?

 

[davidlv]

The premise of the topic (these days) is faulty.

The internal drive will be faster -- FAR faster -- than ANY external drive you can connect. Most external drives don't come anywhere close. The new Apple internal SSDs literally "leave them back in the dust".

HOWEVER...
There ARE "steps you can take" to minimize wear-and-tear on the internal drive. This is what I do:
- TURN OFF virtual memory disk swapping (using terminal). You DO have to take care not to overload physical RAM by having too many apps open, too many tabs, etc.
- TURN OFF Spotlight so that it's not continually indexing. I've done that with EVERY version of the OS on EVERY Mac I have since Spotlight was first introduced. I don't miss it.
- You should BUY ENOUGH RAM (when buying the Mac) so as to "have enough" physical RAM to do your day-to-day tasks without resorting to VM.

I've been doing the above for years now.
I have NEVER had ANY memory-related crash from doing this. NOT ONE.

@Fishrrman Can you post that terminal command to "TURN OFF virtual memory disk swapping"?

 

[crowe-t]

OK, I bought a lightly used Crucial P1 M2 1TB drive for cheap + Orico M2PV-C3 USB-C 10Gbps enclosure (it's a quality cheap enclosure and really provides up to 10Gbps speed, so I can recommend it for those who can't afford Thunderbolt/USB-4 drives). Successfully made a bootable Monterey 12.5 USB drive with standard Apple Disk Utility, only to find out that system gives me the infamous "SDErrorDomain error 108" message when I actually try to boot the Mac from it.

Then I just used Carbon Copy Cloner and cloned my internal drive to the USB drive, it went smooth to my surprise and provided me with bootable drive without any problems. It works well and quick (even though boot now takes about 25s instead of 10 or so). Just don't use Samsung drives, I read they have problems with TRIM on MacOS and boot in more than a minute.

But now I have a big question. How do I update MacOS on this external drive when new update comes, just like it was an internal drive or there are going to be some problems?

Is the bootable external drive about as fast as using the internal SSD?

Is it just the Samsung external drives that have the problems with TRIM and Mac OS and longer boot time?

 

[crowe-t]

What's the best option(s) for an external bootable SSD connected to a 2018 Mac Mini?

I'd like to preserve the internal SSD and run it off an external drive?

 

[Mac Hammer Fan]

a bootable external SSD is not as fast as an internal SSD.

 

[crowe-t]

a bootable external SSD is not as fast as an internal SSD.

I know but it might be worth trying. Do you know of a good fast external drive for this?

 

[PauloSera]

The premise of the topic (these days) is faulty.

The internal drive will be faster -- FAR faster -- than ANY external drive you can connect. Most external drives don't come anywhere close. The new Apple internal SSDs literally "leave them back in the dust".

HOWEVER...
There ARE "steps you can take" to minimize wear-and-tear on the internal drive. This is what I do:
- TURN OFF virtual memory disk swapping (using terminal). You DO have to take care not to overload physical RAM by having too many apps open, too many tabs, etc.
- TURN OFF Spotlight so that it's not continually indexing. I've done that with EVERY version of the OS on EVERY Mac I have since Spotlight was first introduced. I don't miss it.
- You should BUY ENOUGH RAM (when buying the Mac) so as to "have enough" physical RAM to do your day-to-day tasks without resorting to VM.

I've been doing the above for years now.
I have NEVER had ANY memory-related crash from doing this. NOT ONE.

Or you could do none of these things and it will still work perfectly fine.

 

[yellowhelicopter]

Is the bootable external drive about as fast as using the internal SSD?

Is it just the Samsung external drives that have the problems with TRIM and Mac OS and longer boot time?

It's not as fast. But still fast enough to not notice any difference in usual use except the boot time, which in my case is about 1-2 minutes vs 15-30 seconds. Otherwise I don't have any perceivable disadvantages while using external SSD as my main drive.

As for Samsung, I don't know. But external drive will boot up longer than internal M* drive in any case.

 

[crowe-t]

It's not as fast. But still fast enough to not notice any difference in usual use except the boot time, which in my case is about 1-2 minutes vs 15-30 seconds. Otherwise I don't have any perceivable disadvantages while using external SSD as my main drive.

As for Samsung, I don't know. But external drive will boot up longer than internal M* drive in any case.

What SSD and other parts did you use?

 

[yellowhelicopter]

What SSD and other parts did you use?

I mentioned it above:

OK, I bought a lightly used Crucial P1 M2 1TB drive for cheap + Orico M2PV-C3 USB-C 10Gbps enclosure (it's a quality cheap enclosure and really provides up to 10Gbps speed, so I can recommend it for those who can't afford Thunderbolt/USB-4 drives).

To install/update macOS (Monterey or Ventura) I've had to connect it to USB-A port though. When it's connected to USB-C installation somehow can't complete, it boots back to old macOS version after restart without any error message. After installation/update it works fine after switching back to USB-C.

 

[Fishrrman]

davidlv asked:
"Can you post that terminal command to "TURN OFF virtual memory disk swapping"?"

To DISABLE virtual memory:

sudo launchctl unload -wF /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.apple.dynamic_pager.plist
(reboot necessary afterwards)

To REMOVE swap files:
sudo rm /private/var/vm/swapfile*

To check if VM is being used:
sysctl vm.swapusage

If VM is off, report should be:
vm.swapusage: total = 0.00M used = 0.00M free = 0.00M

Note:
All I've ever done is to DISABLE VM disk swapping.
I have NEVER turned it back on again, not sure if this is the right command, but here it is:

To enable swap, you need to boot in Single User Mode (Hold [CMD + S] at booting time) and run this command:
sudo launchctl load /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.apple.dynamic_pager.plist

 

[davidlv]

davidlv asked:
"Can you post that terminal command to "TURN OFF virtual memory disk swapping"?"

To DISABLE virtual memory:

sudo launchctl unload -wF /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.apple.dynamic_pager.plist
(reboot necessary afterwards)

To REMOVE swap files:
sudo rm /private/var/vm/swapfile*

To check if VM is being used:
sysctl vm.swapusage

If VM is off, report should be:
vm.swapusage: total = 0.00M used = 0.00M free = 0.00M

Note:
All I've ever done is to DISABLE VM disk swapping.
I have NEVER turned it back on again, not sure if this is the right command, but here it is:

To enable swap, you need to boot in Single User Mode (Hold [CMD + S] at booting time) and run this command:
sudo launchctl load /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.apple.dynamic_pager.plist

@Fishrrman Thanks so much.
Worked. Yesterday, I downloaded the update InstallAssistant.pkg for Monterey 12.6.2 and after saving it to another disk and erasing it, my remaining disk space was down to 53+ GB. After running your script, then the one to check, with the "not running" results you posted, I ran Oynx to delete the system caches and the APFS snapshots. After a reboot and running "sudo tmutil thinLocalSnapshots / 10000000000 4" in terminal,
I immediately had 79+ GB! Not sure how much of the reclaimed space was due to the VM image file or the AFPS snapshots, but in any case it is nice to get that space back. I am running an old 2014 iMac that originally had a fusion drive. I separated the 128GB SSD and the 1TB HDD, so while running off the small SSD is fairly fast, keeping some open space is really difficult. That script seems to have helped a lot. Normally, I would have about 53+ GB available, so that 79 GB is a first. I always run the sleep command shown below too, but now I will include your script in my first run list.
Sleep commands compiled from posts in this forum:

pmset -g Shows what you have set now.
sudo pmset -a hibernatemode 0 standby 0 autopoweroff 0
sudo rm /var/vm/sleepimage or sudo rm /private/var/vm/sleepimage
--Ignore any message saying there is no such file
sudo touch /var/vm/sleepimage or sudo touch /private/var/vm/sleepimage
--This command creates a blanked zero-byte file so the OS cannot rewrite the file:
--Make file immutable: (sudo chflags nouchg ... to revert)
sudo chflags uchg /var/vm/sleepimage or sudo chflags uchg /private/var/vm/sleepimage
The sleep image file is actually in /private/var/vm/ but /var/vm/ is a symbolic link to that location.
sudo pmset -a proximitywake 0
sudo pmset -b tcpkeepalive 0
--This command may produce a warning saying some features may not work properly. This is fine, it simply disables Internet access during sleep. This is the same as disabling "PowerNap" Apple's badly implemented (demented?) attempt to have apps update themselves during sleep behind the users back.
sudo pmset -a standbydelaylow 86400
sudo pmset -a standbydelayhigh 86400

 

[Quackers]

This was discussed on here a couple of years ago.
If I remember correctly (and I think I do) it seems that the external bootable system still uses the base Mac to boot, so if you lose the base Mac you lose the external system too.

For example, if I make a bootable system from my M1 MBA to an external drive it will only keep booting whilst my MBA still works.
If the MBA dies then so does the externally bootable system.

 

[hugodrax]

Don’t worry about it. My 2012 Mac Mini with the SSD Fusion drive running 24/7 for 10 years has not had any issue with the SSD wearing out. No need to worry just use it as is.

 

[Shazaam!]

It's too late for some owners, but the best way to reduce internal drive wear and have the fastest drive available in a M-series Mac is to buy a large capacity SSD when you purchase the machine from Apple. One or two terabytes as a minimum. This is not the place to save money.