Moving a 1TB boot up SSD to an M1 MB Pro

[deckard666]

Finally going to push over from cMP to my M1 MB Pro but now realising that i only have 512gb SSD in the M1 and I installed a 1TB SSD Drive in my older mac which only has 300gb free - Is there any way/advantage to booting from it or do I just need to slim my capacity usage down to fit ?

 

[Coldmode]

Are you asking if you should get under 512GB usage in your current computer so you can use Migration Assistant to move to your new machine, or are you asking if you can carry around your old 1TB SSD in an enclosure and boot your M1 Mac from it? In either case I would try to fit into your onboard storage...carrying around an SSD to use as a boot drive would be a royal pain. Then you can store less frequently used large files on that SSD in an enclosure and only plug it in when you need to access them, or just leave it plugged in if you're using the MBP at a desk. However, if you're still in your return window for the M1 MBP I'd send it back and get one with a bigger drive.

 

[Fishrrman]

You can't upgrade the internal drive on the MacBook (but I think you know that).

You probably can't boot from an external drive (with m-series CPU) UNLESS you erase the drive and start over.
Drive will have to be in APFS, GUID partition format.

You DO NOT want to do this anyway, on a regular basis.
Booting from an external drive (on m-series) IS NOT like doing it on an Intel Mac.
I have a MacBook Pro 14", and I -CAN- boot from an external drive, but that's only for some very specific circumstances. NOT "regularly".

You can connect and use an external drive for additional storage if you wish.
If it's a 1tb 2.5" SATA SSD, just get an enclosure like this:

SABRENT 2.5 Inch SATA to USB 3.0 Tool Free External Hard Drive Enclosure [Optimized for SSD, Support UASP SATA III] Black (EC-UASP)

SABRENT 2.5 Inch SATA to USB 3.0 Tool Free External Hard Drive Enclosure [Optimized for SSD, Support UASP SATA III] Black (EC-UASP)

www.amazon.com

But again... you don't want to be booting from it.

Really, "the solution" is:
Sell or trade-in the MacBook you have.
Get a new (or Apple-refurbished) MacBook with an internal drive that is 1tb or 2tb.

 

[deckard666]

Or slim down to under the 512gb....which shouldn't be too hard...

I have literally 16TB of external drives for my cMP anyway full of FLAC music, photos, films and samples so I will need to be running a bit of external storage anyway....The boot drive is already in APFS, Guid so maybe it can be my new Photo / iTunes storage.

Thanks for the help and are you actually in Penryn, Cornwall ? If so I am up in Mabe

 

[Coldmode]

Or slim down to under the 512gb....which shouldn't be too hard...

I have literally 16TB of external drives for my cMP anyway full of FLAC music, photos, films and samples so I will need to be running a bit of external storage anyway....The boot drive is already in APFS, Guid so maybe it can be my new Photo / iTunes storage.

Thanks for the help and are you actually in Penryn, Cornwall ? If so I am up in Mabe

Penryn is also a town in California and the codename of a processor made by Intel in 2007/8 =).

 

[deckard666]

Ah consider me taught ! 👍