The external SSD is a couple months old.5 minutes to boot is pretty slow, even if the default boot drive is not selected.
You say the boot is also slow when you try on another Mac.
Did you try a different USB cable?
If there is no noticeable change, then I would suspect that your external is not too healthy.
Have you tried a simple test?
Boot to internet recovery,then open Disk Utility, Choose your external drive, and click First Aid.
It isTry this... go to System Prefs and the Startup Disk pane and make sure the external SSD is set as the boot drive. If it is not selected, the OS spends time hunting around for available bootable drives, and that slows down the boot process.
If the system keeps the snapshots for 24 hours, it means they are gone now... Right?Most likely.
I don’t use TimeMachine and I don’t know how it works, but you should probably consider deleting the snapshot.
See https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204015
You can view APFS snapshots in Disk Utility https://support.apple.com/guide/disk-utility/view-apfs-snapshots-dskuf82354dc/macIf the system keeps the snapshots for 24 hours, it means they are gone now... Right?
1 - If you install Big Sur by booting to the Big Sur installer (use the bootable installer for that), the installer will automatically change the destination to APFS.I am trying to keep a copy of my mojave system, I want to try upgrade it to big sur, maybe I won't get these startup issues, but running into problems:
I created a 500gb partition on my 2TB SSD. I tried 2 ways:
1 - format it as OSX Extended. It worked, but when I try to upgrade it to Big Sur (downloaded copy), it says the volume is not APFS, and it won't let me continue.
2 - format it as APFS, and then it won't let me use my time machine backup to put my mojave system back...
Any ideas?
Thanks
I believe TM using APFS (Case-sensitive) started with Big Sur. I currently have a 2018 Mini running Big Sur and the TM Drive is APFS (Case-sensitive). TM is working fine.2 - Big Sur does not support time machine backups on APFS. The TM backup must be on OS X Extended.
I am sure that you need Ventura to use APFS volume for TM backups (maybe Monterey, but absolutely not yet supported on Big Sur system.
Well, I get this now, because I formatted the destination partition in APFS.1 - If you install Big Sur by booting to the Big Sur installer (use the bootable installer for that), the installer will automatically change the destination to APFS.
2 - Big Sur does not support time machine backups on APFS. The TM backup must be on OS X Extended.
I am sure that you need Ventura to use APFS volume for TM backups (maybe Monterey, but absolutely not yet supported on Big Sur system.
Can you show a screenshot/picture of the message that you get in the installer "volume is not APFS, cannot continue with install, etc."?
You also want to make sure that the partition scheme is "GUID", and not Master Boot Record, also not Apple Parition Map...
I can't do that. I have 2 partitions on the drive, and one of them is my OS (slow start monterey)Still trying to erase?
if you can't erase the volume, select the device that volume is on, then choose erase for that.
Make sure that you have "Show all Devices" selected in the View menu for Disk Utility, then choose that device for your TM volume (the line that shows your device will have the manufacturer's info, not the name that you assigned to a volume.)