HT202796: How to install OS X on an external drive connected to your Mac

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JABR746543

Q: Startup USB pianfully slow, will External USB HD be faster?


My iMAC 2009 OS will not boot leaving me hanging with the spinning wheel of death at the apple logo. With Alt-Cmd-R I was able to verify the internal harddrive is "ok" so it appears my OS X is messed up and needs to be reinstalled. Before reinstalling, I want to save all the data on my interanl HD to an external. I created a startup disk using a 64G USB but it is painfully slow. Would the Mac run faster if the OS was on an external USB 3T HD?

iMac, Mac OS X (10.7.5)

Posted on Sep 9, 2014 5:46 AM

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Q: Startup USB pianfully slow, will External USB HD be faster?

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  • by dianeoforegon,

    dianeoforegon dianeoforegon Sep 9, 2014 11:42 AM in response to JABR746543
    Level 5 (5,298 points)
    Sep 9, 2014 11:42 AM in response to JABR746543

    The size of the drive will not make it boot faster. If you had a FW drive it would be faster but to make a backup just let it run overnight.

     

    Are you making a clone or a Time Machine backup? I suggest you create a clone. It's faster and will better serve your needs than Time Machine. A clone is bootable but Time Machine is not.

     

    Both of these applications can be used to create a clone.

     

    SuperDuper! http://www.shirt-pocket.com/

    CCC http://www.bombich.com/download.html

     

       USB 1.1 = 12 Mbit/s

       Firefire 400 = 400 Mbit/s

       USB 2.0 = 480 Mbit/s

       FireWire 800 = 800 Mbit/s

       USB 3.0 = 5 Gbit/s

       Thunderbolt = 10 Gbit/s

     

     

    USB 3.0 is 10x faster than USB 2.0

    Thunderbolt is 12 times faster than FireWire 800 and up to 20 times faster than USB 2.0.

  • by BobHarris,

    BobHarris BobHarris Sep 10, 2014 5:59 AM in response to JABR746543
    Level 6 (19,272 points)
    Mac OS X
    Sep 10, 2014 5:59 AM in response to JABR746543

    A USB Flash Drive is NOT a fast device.  A USB hard disk will be faster than a Flash device.  You internal disk will be faster than the USB hard disk, only because it has a faster interface, but the USB hard disk will beat just about any USB Flash device.

     

    I have bootable USB flash devices for emergencies, but not to run my system normally.

  • by Lanny,Solvedanswer

    Lanny Lanny Sep 10, 2014 11:29 AM in response to JABR746543
    Level 5 (7,900 points)
    Desktops
    Sep 10, 2014 11:29 AM in response to JABR746543
    I created a startup disk using a 64G USB but it is painfully slow. Would the Mac run faster if the OS was on an external USB 3T HD?

    If the 64Gig USB that you refer to is a thumb drive, yes, it will be slow. They are not in the same performance league as hard drives.