MacOS High Sierra boot drive

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Level 1

7 points

MacOS High Sierra boot drive

Is it possible to turn my external drive into a bootable drive?

I'm running High Sierra 10.13.6 on my MBP and want the external drive exclusively for live music recording. I would be connecting to internet via ethernet. I don't have enough space on my internal drive also I want as little background activity as possible, so would not be installing any other apps on the external drive. I don't know if this is possible? Thanks for any suggestions.

MacBook Pro 13″, macOS 10.13

Posted on Sep 12, 2020 10:28 AM

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Answer 1

Top-ranking reply

HWTech

Level 9

60,752 points

Sep 12, 2020 7:03 PM in response to BebopLondon

Depending on the Mac and the ports you have it may be better to reverse the setup if you are going to be dealing with recording live music. Booting from an external drive may be a bit slower depending on many factors which may affect the recordings.

Depending on the exact model of your Mac you may be able to upgrade its internal storage instead. Check out OWC to see if your MBPro is able to have its internal storage upgraded:

https://eshop.macsales.com/shop/ssd/owc/macbook-pro

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Answer 2

BebopLondon Author

Level 1

7 points

Sep 13, 2020 1:54 AM in response to HWTech

Thanks for responding. Really helpful. I've checked the link and will go that route.

My only concern is that I want the new drive to run the same OS that I have now - High Sierra 10.13.6, because of compatibility with other apps.

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Answer 3

HWTech

Level 9

60,752 points

Sep 13, 2020 10:35 AM in response to BebopLondon

You can run macOS 10.13 High Sierra on a third party SSD. You will need to erase the new SSD after it is installed by using Disk Utility. Erase it as GUID partition and APFS (top option). Then you can either restore from a backup or you can clone your drive using Carbon Copy Cloner.

FYI, you should always have frequent and regular backups since it is impossible to recover accidentally deleted data from an SSD. Plus an SSD can fail at any time without any warning signs.

I highly recommend keeping the original Apple SSD just in case it is ever needed for a later OS upgrade or system firmware update. Having the original SSD is useful in case you ever need to troubleshoot whether the third party SSD.

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Answer 4

BebopLondon Author

Level 1

7 points

Sep 13, 2020 12:35 PM in response to HWTech

Thanks. I'm very mindful about backing up and frequently back up with Time Machine, particularly if I'm about to do something that might be risky. From your comments it sounds like the best for me will be to make a clone which I haven't done before and as you advise, keep the original HD in case of emergency.

Just occurred to me, after making the 'clone' , will Time Machine be able to locate and back-up the new drive as a continuation of the older backups or will it see it as a different internal HD?

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