external Hard drive as a startup drive

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Level 1

24 points

external Hard drive as a startup drive

I understand I can "Clone" my iMac to an external hard drive and I can start from this external HD. What is the advantage of doing so and how do I do it?

JDonS

iMac, OS X Mountain Lion, 21" iMac

Posted on Dec 19, 2012 12:49 PM

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Answer 1

Shootist007

Level 6

16,703 points

Dec 19, 2012 2:31 PM in response to JDonS

There is not advantage of doing it on a regular basis or at all to Run the computer.

The advantage of having a Bootable external drive is IF your internal drive fails or get corrupted you have a way to start the computer and to do maintenance on it. and that you have a backup of your programs and files. you should also have a second external to do Time Machine back ups on.

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Answer 2

Joe Gramm

Level 5

6,407 points

Dec 19, 2012 2:36 PM in response to JDonS

Starting up from a clone is usually done if there is a problem starting up from the Main Drive or as a matter of trouble shooting. I'm not sure there are any advantages to the average user to boot up into the clone.

Making a clone is simple if you have an external drive big enough to clone your entire main drive. Use either Carbon Copy Cloner or SuperDuper.

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