This! This is a reference work on how to do this from scratch. Beautifully laid out and perfectly understandable. Did something similar (using a Thunderbolt 3 enclosure) on an M1 Mac I reset to factory specs. I use that M1 to hold all my MP3s; I have a Raspberry Pi4 that does a similar thing in another room. This just sets an old 8GB/256GB free! Mahalo for giving me this idea.
First let me say I am sorry this video is so long it took me a long time to make it, I just tried to cover as much as I could for folks setting up their mini for the first time with an external drive / user account and external Applications folder etc. I have learned a few things since the last video I made on this. Use the chapters to get around they should be helpful.
I ended up installing the OS on a fast external SSD. This way I can choose either to boot from the internal OS or the external. The external allows me to have enough space to do all my video editing without worry or issues.
Great video, thanks for being so clear and straight forward! I still have questions though; When updated to 15.2, do we still need to erase those two problem files that Apple trolled us with? And when all is set up as you describe. Can I restore from a Time machine from my M1 Macbook Air?
Another great and very helpful video! I've recieved my very first Mac today, and now it works like charm with my 2TB Zike drive. Wonderful! And thank you very much.
Always look forward to your videos, I love the way you explain. I’m waiting for my M4 MacMini to arrive which by the way thanks to one of your previous videos I was able to purchase from Amazon and saved about $100. I’ll definitely buy one of these 2TB external drives using your easy to follow directions. Thanks again for what you do.
Thanks for that hint about the Thunderbolt 4 versus T-bolt 3! It explained a few problems I've had and I'll slowly be moving all the drives over to T-bolt 4 enclosures. Also, going forward... Adam Engst of "TidBITS" just wrote a great write-up on doing backups of your machines that dovetails nicely with your approach for splitting off your data volume (User Directory) from the systems volume. Sequoia basically broke making bootable backups and this approach helps avoid that problem.
Hello Lance I am using a Samsung - T9 Portable SSD 4TB, Up to 2,000MB/s, USB 3.2 Gen2 - Black and was able to delete any app downloaded to the original applications folder by selecting show contents and then selecting get info, select the plus sign to add permissions for my main user. Change the read only to the read and write. Then highlight that user and select make it the owner. Then select apply all permissions to the contents. Once that has been done you can delete it after you copy it to the external. One thing extra I did was create a symbolic link on the original applications folder to the new location on the external which allowed me to update the app any time it became available. Hopefully this helps. I am sure you could explain it to the followers better. But thanks for your help. Works great! T-Fitz
Thanks for that! However, I'm still waiting for my external drive and I've already set up my main user... so I'll most likely create a new 'backupuser' and re-create everything from scratch. I need to see you other video about moving the user data from internal to the external drive using the Time Machine... maybe this would be easier for me. Great vid anyways, your # is really helping :)
Thank you, I’m excited to perform your tutorial and get my Man Mini Pro up and running. Question….? You did say that as you plug in the external, you had to reformat the drive…..AS IT COMES IN AS EXFAT, ECT….BUT YOU DID NOT SAY TO REFORMAT INTO THE DESIRED SETTING. Which setting do I reformat this drive into ? Thank you again…..next up…..watching your video on moving all my data from my old iMac, to the new Mac…..external hard drive. A BIG THANK YOU.
Thanks for doing this Video. You must be getting sick of this subject. I've watched all your videos (multiple times) and this is the clearest ! Great job. However, I'm still having a really hard time figuring out how to get my stuff from my other Mac Mini (M1) to the new Mini 4. I watched your migration video several times and am still not getting it right. Do you think time machine is still the way to go? I would really love it if you did a redo of the "How to Migrate your data..." video to walk people like me through it. I don't know, maybe I'm hopeless...
@@francescodamico1123 yes you can copy your user folder to the external drive “users” folder from you Time Machine backup and then creat the same user account name in users and groups then activate it like I show in the videos then use apples, migration tool to migrate your data, from your other Mac excluding user. I guess I have to go back and watch it, I might make another video on it. Thanks for watching any direct question I’ll try to help
THIS new video really made my day!!! Thanks a thousand times, Lance! Yes, my next step is to migrate the time machine data. I will have another look at your current video... hope I won't stick 🙏
Another great video Lance. I asked this question in the original video, but still not sure how to proceed. My wife and I will be using the Mini. I would like to have separate accounts, but not have her with Admin privs, if I can avoid it. Can I just have myself as the Admin and set her up as a Standard user using the same steps? Thanks
@@jw15540 sure that should be fine, you will be sharing apps and but be aware that you can access each others account unlike when accounts are internal when on an external drive You can set permissions on each user account with setting them on the individual user home folders, I was playing around with this and will make a video about it soon. Also be sure to have a backup user admin internal account.
I have a satachi enclosure with samsung 990 pro it is supposed to be thunderbolt 4 but i am having the same problem of deleting the small apps from the internal drive after copying them. How to know if I am really using thunderbolt 4, write and read are both 3100 mb/s. Great video you are the only one who faced the same problem as me on youtube
Those speeds are def thunderbolt 4. It’s a permissions thing, log into your backup internal user account if you don’t have one create one that’s an administrator and you can delete the apps from there, but Apple system apps cannot be deleted like mail, Safari, etc.,
Hi there, thanks again for the video. I am setting up my new Mini M4 and the Settings in the App store don’t show the option to download the 1gb Plus programs in a different folder. Am i missing sth? Downloaded programs are installed on the internal drive, unless I interfere.
Awesome video! However I found a problem when downloading a program, had to install it on the "macintoch HD", then copied it to the new "Applications"-folder on the external drive. All this time it showed on the "launchpad", but when I deleted the program from the internal drive, it dissapeared from the launchpad. The program still works from the external drive and i think I set up the sim-link correctly... Any advise on this? Many thanks, keep up the great work!
Lance, my old computer is maxed out on space from my wife's endless iPhone photos and videos. I am hoping this will fix it. After I do this do i just follow your video on migration even though I have already done a lot of the external user set up here?
@@ES-yi8vv best is to make a timemachine backup with your wife’s user account, then copy the user folder to the new external drive from the timemachine backup, open the TM drive and inside the most recent backup will be the users folder maybe watch my timemachine video, then create the internal user with the same name as the one you copied and go to advanced user options and point it to the external path on the external drive. Then you can migrate just the Macintosh HD data excluding the user account if you want to. You will also have to tell Apple photos to use the new external photo library as your system iCloud library that way new stuff will download to the external drive I show that in one of my other videos.
Hi Lance, thanks for posting these. I agree that the external should be encrypted...but that begs the question what happens when you boot the machine? At what point will it ask for the password, and how does that effect startup, or wake from sleep?
@@metaflexa the only change really is setting up the internal account first and then creating the external account second and a couple of things about the applications folder, which is the same link I show at the end of the video which is pretty sweet and the fact that because of apples update 15.2 you cannot just drag and drop your home folder to copy it off your internal drive to your external drive because you’ll get an error due to two little cash files that are in the user library.
Really appreciate it. I got my base model Mac mini m4 up and running. A few questions though: 1. My MacOS is 15.1. will everything be affected upon upgrade to the newest version? 2. Is it okay to rename the testuser after everything is successful? Thanks a lot for your kind informative video ❤
Can you use migration assistant to restore from Time Machine of an internal home folder on a MacBook to an external home folder on a base mini with 2GB external?
@@dancharles4890 it’s actually best to just go into the Time Machine back up your most recent one and drag and drop the home folder to the external drive and just do what I show in the video here to set it up in users and groups then use migration assistant to only import the data from your Macintosh HD not the user account. You can watch my time machine video for more info..
@@MacSoundSolutions Do you mean the one titled "How to Migrate your data to your Mac Mini’s external Home!"? If so, thanks, that seems to describe what I need.
So at first I did what you did on the first video that needed and external home to my Mac mini m4 that was already mounted or opened. I did it on OWC 1 tb external drive but now I would like to transfer my home drive on an 2 tb drive that I bought from OWC, can I just copy my 1tb home drive on the 2tb and then switch the drive from enclosure. I have the 2 tb mounted in another portable enclosure. They both work from the USB-C on the back of the mini.
yes you can move the nvme from one drive to another and copy your home folder. If you have issues watch my last video three ways to move your home folder.
@@kumarkishnani I actually figures out a way to index stuff but it is my first attempt and I am not a programmer at all I wish I were. But I created a script to a folder on icloud drive and used folder actions and when you add a new file it creates an alias to a folder in the external user account and then spotlight indexes it and bingo it is now searchable, spotlight finds the alias and then you can launch the file on icloud drive. I thing I know just the guy to work on this cause it ain't me....
@@MacSoundSolutions sounds like a progress, thanks for doing this... I'm also in touch with apple and their technical team is looking into this as well, if I get any solution I'll update it here.
Hello @macsoundsolutionsinc I was wondering if I have everything set up like you have here how would I go about adding my wife and child an account on the computer set up the same way? Would they have to be admin accounts? Could I set their accounts up to go to the external drive also but not be able to delete data from the external drive?
Yes you can create a folder in the externaldrive/users/wifename then go to users and groups add user wifename and then set the path to the external drive/users/wifename you can make her an admin or just standard when setting up. Keep in mind that all users can access eachothers accounts when on the external drive so you can set permissions on the drive to only allow that user to enter their user folder with a password. I plan to make a multi user video soon.
I have enjoyed all your videos on this topic, Lance. I plan to transfer my existing account from my current iMac setup to my MacMini, following the advice you gave in an earlier video (TimeMachine and Migration Assistant etc.) I wonder if you have any advice about the Shared folder on my current system. Can I just copy it into the new Users folder on my external drive?
You talk about an additional account for video editing. What does that look like. Can you explain that in a small video the how and why you added this account.... Thx in advance Franz from the Netherlands
It’s just my main account that lives on the external SSD Zike drive the account I created in this is only for the demo to show you how to do it so I have two accounts my back up internal user for in case anything goes wrong with the external I can still get back into my computer and my external main account, which is exactly the same as I show in the video, but I have 4 TB of storage as I rated two drives together, which is a little risky, but I get 6000 MB per second read and right and that’s what I’m using for Final Cut Pro and I just keep my Final Cut Pro libraries in the movies folder and then that gets backed up to my Time Machine Dr. but maybe I will do a video on my whole set up.
Absolutely love your way of explaining things Lance, thank you!! I followed your directions on my new M4 Mac Mini last night using a nice quick nvme drive, followed your encryption directions too. All was good until I fired it up this morning and got an error saying “you can’t log in at this time due to an error” (or something like that)… I can log into the internal backupuser account, but not the asking in the external ssd… any clues on what I’ve broken or how to fix it? Thanks!!
You need to mount the encrypted drive with the internal user and save the password in the keychain. Then always log into the internal user first and then into your external user, you can set the internal to auto log in to save time. And also have fast user switching turned on. It’s one extra step, but there’s really no work around the drive has to be mounted first before you can log into it.
@@MacSoundSolutionsthat’s where I went wrong 🤦🏻♂️. I decrypted the drive and got it working, I’ll encrypt it again (and wait longer now that I’ve migrated more assets over 😂) and look into the auto login/fast switching etc. …so, I guess if you never shut the mini down, that would also avoid this issue as well?
@@BWRM.Cambridge I have a video called encrypt your hone check it out. I have found you can also get info on the drive and set permissions to be only the one user. I have to play around with it a bit more but no on else can access the drive on the same mac, but I took the drive and plugged it into my mac book air and could access the drive.
Hi thank you for all you are doing on this! I followed your instructions and as far as I can tell everything worked like a champ however, it seems like the main drive has 27.5 gb already used on it. Does this sound correct? Yours seemed like much less was being used. Any suggestions? I am starting with a brand new mac mini. Thank you.
Quick question would be what do you do with the 200+GB internal storage you are left with. For me, i dont have a lot of apps, but i have a lot of data that swamps my internal drive. For my use case id be tempted to have the external user drive for my users home directories, but keep all the applications on the internal drive. This is a great series of videos. Its not often i return to read comments on videos, but your viewers are obviously really engaged on this topic.
@@chriscrowe3527 you can totally do that. Just leave your applications on the internal drive and have your user account on the external that way all your photos iOS, backups downloads, etc. etc. all go to the external drive and you can use Time Machine to back up the internal and the external all at once on a separate drive of course for timemachine and make sure the external home drive is not in the Time Machine excluded drive list.
Hi, I bought the LG Ultra Wide monitor 40 inches the 95C I use the Apple cables plugging into the thunderbolt cable into the ports of the monitor in my Mac mini Pro. I turn on the monitor and I see the LG letters floating on screen I turn on the Mac mini Pro And nothing shows up on the monitor screen. I hear the speaker from the Mac mini pro talking about keyboard, etc. what am I doing wrong? Isn’t it plug-in play every tutorial on taking the monitor out of the box in the Mac mini Pro it shows already on screen beginning to set up the computer. I can’t even get there. Any ideas why I’ve got nothing do I have to buy a new mouse and keyboard? Shouldn’t the connection of the thunderbolt bring the Mac mini Pro on screen. Any thoughts would be greatly appreciated.
@@panamouse6178 what Apple cables are you referring to? The Mac mini only comes with a power cable you need a thunderbolt for cable, but you should just be able to use the HDMI to at least get Signal out of the monitor and then set the monitor to be on the HDMI input. Also, the Mac mini really wants to see the Apple trackpad or mouse and the Apple keyboard. Otherwise, you need a wired keyboard to get it set up with other Bluetooth devices that are non-Apple, but you should still be getting something on the screen, showing a flashing mouse or something
@ turns out, it was the need to plug in the HDMI cable. I then got the Mac Mini Pro on screen. But, we are without Wifi, so I cannot get to use your video as guidance. I’m sort of hampered as I am 3 weeks from hip replacement surgery, so I’ve been limited. Once I get wifi back, tomorrow, I’ll begin to use your video. Thank you ever so much for your insight. It did the trick.
Hi Lance! Thanks for this video. I followed step by step. All went well, except the setting in the Appstore: I dont have this option "Download and install to a separate disk" visible. Any idea how to solve? Thanks
Hello Lance, Your videos are alway very informative.. would be more practical to get a OWCminiStack STX with a addition of WD 1TB WD_Black SN770 NVMe M.2 SSD For the Home Folder.. and a WD 10TB Gold for Storage...? I just got this combo for my older Macmini M1 for photoshop use..
Yes you can do this with any mac. You will want to transfer all your data onto the external drive. check out my last video on the three different ways to do it.
Thank You For Your Videos.... If I were to add Firefox to my home folder Applications and use Firefox.... I noticed Firefox writes data to the SSD looking at Activity Monitor and adding the colum "Bytes Written" Does the data that gets written get written to the MacHD or the external Drive? Reason for asking is you only get so much data writes to the SSD before it dies So I rather my External Die Before My M4 Mac internal dies cause then I will have a paper weight
Most Firefox files will go to the external but to make sure all the cache files etc To Ensure Everything Stays External 1. Check the Profile Path: Go to about:profiles in Firefox. It will show the location of the current profile directory. 2. Adjust Firefox Settings: • You can set a custom cache directory by modifying the browser.cache.disk.parent_directory preference in about:config (e.g., point it to a specific folder on your external drive).
If you user terminal you can copy the enter user account to an external drive but some apps are multi user only and some need to be installed on the internal drive. I used to dabble in Xcode a little bit, but I don’t now and I don’t use android studio so hard for me to say.
I apologize in advance for these basic questions. What is the purpose of this setup? Are Apps limited to 256GB even if I use the Samsung T7 (which I already own) as an external drive? Although there are limitations with a USB 3.2, would you still use the Samsung T7 if that is all you had? I plan to use the Mac Mini for surfing the web, word processing, saving pictures, and some Apps. I am not too concerned with speed unless it will be painfully slow. BTW This is my first apple computer but I have used the iphone and ipad for many years. Thanks!!
Perhaps Lance will give you extra details, but the purpose is mainly to save the high $$$ cost Apple charge for extra storage. You can get a USB 4 external drive with 2TB which runs as fast as the internal 256 GB drive (maybe even faster) for less than the cost of upgrading to the 512 GB Mac Mini. Generally Apps are not limited to 256 GB because a lot of Apps can be installed or moved to the external SSD. Some Apps will only work from the internal SSD, such as the main OS Apps and a few 3rd party Apps. All the best.
@@billykellum it shouldn’t but if the app was originally downloaded by the internal user account, you most likely will have to log into that account to delete it.
Hi Lance, if you’re setting the Zike drive up as RAID 0, how are you implementing your backups? And, is that RAID 0 decision because you want more space with faster speed? Great series of videos btw.
I’m using the raid 0 as my main user account and for video editing then I have the Acasis dual and NVMe hub in Raid zero also and that’s my time machine back up. The whole set up is pretty risky. I don’t know if I’d recommend it but I am getting great speeds, maybe unnecessarily so I just like experimenting and the mini is not my main work computer but it is my UA-cam editing machine and I keep a back up of my time machine back up. I’ve had it for about two weeks this way and it’s working well you just really have to look out for static charges with these externally enclosures. I walk around and slippers all day on a carpet and touching an enclosure with a static charge can make them unmount or freak out I have found, so I’ve placed them where I’m not gonna touch them. The drive when it’s in the plastic enclosure never had the issue, but I removed them to see if it heat dissipation was better and now they are vulnerable to the static charge as well. But I’m getting twice speed that you would get with just a single enclosure and my time machine backups are super fast.
@ Thank you for answering my query so quickly and fully! I have the ACASIS dual enclosure that I’m using for Lightroom as RAID 0 but I haven’t set up a backup yet! I need to get another dual drive (or 2) for iCloud and the home folder. If you were buying a dual drive now, which would you buy, Zike or ACASIS?
@ they are both good. I have two thunderbolt five Acasis enclosures that I have to test out next and I have two Zeke drives and they have been really rocksolid with the Oracle and Vietnamese. They do get pretty warm the team group and Vietnamese stay quite a bit cooler, but they’re not as fast so cooling is a factor. I don’t love the fact that the Acasis have fans on them. I’m sure that cools things down, but I don’t wanna hear that sound but if you’re doing a large file transfer and you’re walking out of the room, can’t hurt to turn on that fan
@@MacSoundSolutions thanks again Lance, fan noise becomes a lower priority when you get older! Something for you to look forward to? Tinnitus, sea gulls, other birds, my old intel iMac’s fan and music make the Acasis fan pale into insignificance!😊
Thanks for the video Lance. I got confused on a couple of points. Why didn't you end up using the Zike drive here? Was that because you didn't have a spare one to use for the video but did have a spare T7? Also there was no mention of deleting those cache files like in an earlier video. Is that because it's not an issue for a brand new install, but only when copying over a home folder from an existing setup? I'm looking forward to using your method when my new Mac Mini arrives in a few weeks. I have an OWC Express 1M2 with 2TB SSD.
@@Somersetinla yes I am using the T7 just to demo, I did not want to start over with my dual raid 0 Zike drives :) the cache files only effect drag and drop. Not doing that in this video as showing a brand new Mac set up as folks were requesting it.
Hi Lance, quick question: I set up my new Mac Mini one week ago, with external drive, by following your previous 2 videos on this same subject. In those videos you showed to setup the second admin account, the internal backup one, after the external user was setup and the library was already moved to the external drive. Is this a problem? Does this mean that the backup user might not work in case I have a problem with the external drive user? Should I now initialize the Mac mini and go through the whole process again and setup the backup user first, and the external drive user afterward? Please confirm if possible, as I want to have a clean and working setup. Thanks for your great help on this subject!
@@alemess63 no no no, You are fine, as long as you have the backup user / admin account you are good. The problem is some people now will get an error if they’re on 15.2 when first dragging and dropping the user account to the external drive, so I’m showing a different way to do that without copying the internal folder which worked great before but now 15.2 through a couple of files in there that keep it from being able to do it without getting an error so this is just another way to set up the external home folder if you’re doing it for the first time
Some apps install for all users and will only install internally, most apps you can install for the individual user and the app itself may still install on the internal drive. You can just try dragging it to the external and launching it to see what happens, pro tools, for instance which I use for audio only installs for multi users and has to run off the internal drive, but seeing you’re getting most of your data on the external drive not a big deal to have some of your main apps on the internal drive.
It’s the MIDAS M32r the original one they redesigned it and put robbery buttons on it and a little less fader travel. I honestly use it just as a hub for different audio sources and I do love it and I use one for work for multi tracking live shows they’re great little boards you can pick one up used for pretty cheap, it is limited to 48K 24bit
@ oh limited to 48 K sucks. I work with classical musicians which normally needs at least 96k. Any recommends? Any recommends on mixers if you where looking at blinging up?
@ lots of folks use Yamaha, Midas Pro, Digi Co, we have a rack of NEVE Pres 1070PX with Dante for higher sample rate multi tracking and go up to 192k that’s what we use for out higher end broadcast captures but might be a bit colored for classical, great for live drums etc.
@@MacSoundSolutions thank you! I’ll check these out. I normally work with small ensembles, up to 6 and with a reluctant stretch, if pushed, 8. Principally classical music. I haven’t worked with drums; well in the long past. But grand pianos, pianos of all shapes, wood instrumental, string in the violin, violas, cello and these variations with brass etc that encompass orchestral arrangements. Thanks for your thoughts, it’s very kind!
@@vjkumar6124 yes watch my video before this one, a Time Machine backup might be best or use terminal. You can try drag and drop if you are on 15.1.1 but 15.2 has an issue. If it copies with drag g and drop you are good but you may get an error. I have a new terminal command I will be posting and that copies everything without logging out. Will post it soon.
The Morganout channel showed how to setup an 'iCloud' drive on an external drive, making a shared cloud drive for different accounts on different machines. From my understanding even a 5GB account can act as a conduit for TBs of files. Is this correct? I'm asking you because she told me to pay more attention if I want to understand rather than answer my question about iCloud storage.
@ yeah she is doing pretty much what I’m doing here although just for iCloud account and then sharing it with her internal account to make it accessible but no, you cannot just having a five gig account. All she’s showing is that you can store your iCloud data on an external drive not eating up your internal storage space on your computer and share it with your internal account. To use up a terabyte iCloud external drive you need a terabyte iCloud account.
Hi Lance, I followed your instruction and use the Sandisk 3.2 usb C external drive as a main storage for my new mac mini M4. Everything went well until recent days I got a problem is that everytime the mac mini goes on sleep mode, it automatically reject the external drive, so when turned back on, a message appeared like " your external home drive was not rejected correctly" and it got some apps stored in the external drive frozen. I have to restart the mac mini every single time this happens. Any solution for that? I haven't updated the mac mini to sequoia 15.2 yet. Many thanks!
@@thecoolestagent some drives don’t like sleeping you might find if you have it attached to a powered hub that the computer will then sleep as the hub stays on keeping power to the drive. Do you have it connected in the back of the computer? Some drives work with sleep mode and some do not all you really have to do is set your monitor sleep and not the mini as it uses so little power when it’s idle anyway. You don’t want your drive ejecting all the time because it can corrupt it. You can lose data, etc. and always have a back up of your home folder via Time Machine or whatever you use.
@ It’s frustrating that this substantial - and to me dealkiller - limitation is never mentioned in all the how-to’s by everyone touting it. The only solution I’ve found was to revert to a conventional setup with the User Folder on the internal drive. But you can get the majority of the benefit by moving Photos and Music libraries and most applications to the external drive.
Yes I need to post the negatives, but I was playing with a script today with folder action setup and I’m no programmer, but I was able to create aliases for every new file put into iCloud Drive documents folder in my user folder called iCloud aliases and bingo the aliases were indexed by spotlight. I think I’m on to something it’s not a fix yet but someone who knows what they’re doing could definitely solve this as aliases take up no space and they make the iCloud drive searchable but if you have multiple folders, you have to set it up for each folder. Plus to index pre existing files in iCloud you have to remove them then put them back in and the aliases get created. Pretty happy with myself for coming up with that, will play with it more tomorrow as my brain is fried.
@ If you’ve found a solution, I’m interested. But I tested aliases a couple weeks ago, and while aliases are synced to iCloud Drive, the files and folders they reference are not. Files aliased cannot be accessed from any other device or the web via iCloud Drive.
@ but other devices do their own indexing… so not a problem for them, so far I was able to create folders on iCloud Drive, creat aliases for all the files in the different folders and then use the script to update when new files are then added to the folders I set up. All searchable on the mini, if a new file is added from an external computer the alias is created on the external home folder and gets indexed by spotlight. So while a bit of a pain to set up if you already have a bunch of folders in folders on the iCloud dtive for me I don’t use it that much cause I use drop box. Now the issue is if you delete a file to have the alias also delete.
@@CeesTax yeah I don’t know what’s going on there. They keep telling me it works and I try it and it doesn’t and they say that’s because I’ve already used it once and it only works once but they’re pretty heavily discounted on Amazon as it is the code does only work in the US so they say
My Mac mini disconnects the SSD in sleep mode. The problem is that the Home folder has been moved to an external SSD and I can't log in. Is there any program solution that allows you to properly wake up/sleep the SSD drive to which the main User has been transferred?
It really depends on the drive. I have found that when my Acasis hub is connected to the Mac mini my drives sleep just fine even though one driver is connected to the hub and two connected to the mini, and my single Zike drive slept no problem without a hub, you definitely don’t want your drive ejecting when it goes to sleep, I would just sleep your monitor and not your system if it’s doing that because you can lose data or it can corrupt the drive, what kind of drive is it?
@@MacSoundSolutions Hi Lance,thank you in advance for your help. I am using direct connection via TB4: OWC Express 1M2 with WD Black SN850X 4TB SSD. On Mac Mini M4 I have 2 Users: Rescue with Home folder on PC and second with Home folder on SSC. I prepared the new Mac according to your instructions and the first couple of restarts of the SSD was without problems. Now I put the Mac to sleep and I get a message that the disk has disconnected and what's more I am unable to find it without disconnecting TB4 several times. So now I have to start from the Rescue user and only later after recognizing the SSC can I log in to my User.
This is a bit scary, since I consider the OWC Express + WD Black setup myself. Have you ensured there are no power saving settings that cause this issue? (from Internet, "Go to Energy Saver window from System Preferences and ensure you deselect “Put hard disk to sleep when possible” checkbox. If the issue persists, try reinstalling hard drive software.")
@@pawelt822 some drives just don’t support sleep, I prefer to not sleep the computer but just set the monitor to sleep, if you connect your drive to a powered hub which might slow the speeds a bit you may be able to sleep it then as the powered hub won’t power down the drive. with my exact drive connected directly to the Mac mini and my Time Machine Dr. connected to my hub. I can sleep the computer and the dish do not eject. Also, if I do sleep, the computer and the drives don’t go to sleep, which was happening when I didn’t have the hub connected the Mac would just wake back up immediately. It would not sleep so it never ejected the drives on me, which is not good if it does that you should just shut down the Mac, even if you have to force shut it down by holding the power button until it turns off then reboot you don’t wanna have to go into recovery mode just to mount the drive, shutting it down and rebooting should do that.
I think this direction is wrong. You keep all your apps and user data on internal and then all data, sound and video files, go on external. I've been doing it the way for 25 years and it works. You only need 256-500gig internal.
If you need more than 256 GB the base model would be insufficient. Lance's method seems to focus on not needing more than the base model, as the extra costs for the 500 GB version are way more than using external SSD. I got the OMC Extreme 1M2 with a 3rd party 2TB SSD for less than Apple charge for the 256 GB upgrade.
Each to his and her own but wrong is not correct, it works great. It keeps all your user data in one place not spread across different drives and folders and is easy back up. Your way is not “wrong” either. I did that my self for a long time and preferred to keep my system drive small until Apple came out with iCloud , iOS, backups, etc and on and on with ways of filling up your internal storage.
Like you I've been doing things as you have for 25 years, however until the last few years Apple never prevented me from upgrading my storage or ram. In fact it was common for users to upgrade their CPU, ram or storage as needed. Unfortunately now Apple has made it nearly impossible to do such things. Soldering their ram chips, etc. You may not be bothered by paying over $800 for a 2TB of storage but for most of us it's crazy. What made the Macintosh thrive throughout the years was the community of users who found solutions and shared their knowledge. If you prefer the tried and true method great. But don't call something that was born out of necessity wrong...
would like to hear your comments on Morgonaut's method of using a separate iCloud account, shown here: ua-cam.com/video/XAl3WXLNTak/v-deo.htmlsi=Swbq2Da2cPpcMhoM. I think I like your method better, but maybe hers is more robust in case apple changes the rules? Dunno
the external user account has been around since OSX first came out, but you never know, her method is to just get your icloud on an external drive, and one thing to note that she doesn't say in the video is you loose the ability to index icloud drive when it is on an external drive. I am working on a fix for that,
Lance, thanks for the great step by step! I downloaded about 5 apps, moved them over to the external application folder & deleted the same new apps on the internal drive. I was able to do this for all new apps except 1Password, I could not delete the app on the internal drive. On the external drive the 1PW app wouldn’t open & it wouldn’t let me place it in the application folder, it kept going right above it. When I did finally add it to the application folder I got this error message, “The operation canit be completed because some items had to be skipped. For each item, choose File - Get Info, make sure "Locked* is deselected, and then check the Sharing & Permissions section. When you are sure the items are unlocked and not designated as Read Only or No Access, try again “, I’ve decided to leave the 400mb app on the internal drive, any suggestions why this is happening? BTW, I’m using a OWC thunderbolt 4 enclosure & WD_BLACK 2TB SN850X NVMe, I had to log into the internal user account to delete the apps that were copied to the external, OS 15.2 Thank you!
Some apps have to be installed on the internal drive because they put files into the system and are tied to it and these apps are usually apps installed for all users on the computer for instance, ProTools my audio app can only be installed on the internal drive. A lot of apps are just all in one package And can be moved around, but some cannot.
Hi Lance, I just buy a mac mini and the enclosure with the ssd. When I plug the enclosure the mac mini doesn’t recognize any externas disk. Do you know what could happen?
@@Alvaroglow you need to go to Finder settings and then click the check boxes hard discs external discs if that’s not working going into disk utility and go to view in the menu bar make sure it’s set to show all devices. Format the external drive in APFS
Many thnks Lance- I already check that menus and still doesn’t working. The external disk it’s a SSD Kingston Fury Renegade, 2TB, M.2 2280, NVMe PCIe 4.0 x4 and the enclosure it’s a normal of 10gbps.
This!
This is a reference work on how to do this from scratch. Beautifully laid out and perfectly understandable.
Did something similar (using a Thunderbolt 3 enclosure) on an M1 Mac I reset to factory specs. I use that M1 to hold all my MP3s; I have a Raspberry Pi4 that does a similar thing in another room.
This just sets an old 8GB/256GB free! Mahalo for giving me this idea.
@@jimcabezola3051 are you in Hawaii? Oh how I miss it and my Mom🥲🤟
@@MacSoundSolutions Yes, I've lived here for decades. My Mum and Dad are buried here.
First let me say I am sorry this video is so long it took me a long time to make it, I just tried to cover as much as I could for folks setting up their mini for the first time with an external drive / user account and external Applications folder etc. I have learned a few things since the last video I made on this. Use the chapters to get around they should be helpful.
Thank you for this tutorial. I am new to Mac and My mini is a 2018 with 128 g😢. Can I use this on my computer running Monterey? Thank you
I ended up installing the OS on a fast external SSD. This way I can choose either to boot from the internal OS or the external. The external allows me to have enough space to do all my video editing without worry or issues.
@@timothy5974 yes same stuff applies
Great video, thanks for being so clear and straight forward! I still have questions though;
When updated to 15.2, do we still need to erase those two problem files that Apple trolled us with?
And when all is set up as you describe. Can I restore from a Time machine from my M1 Macbook Air?
@@needinput9805 How did you do that?
Another great and very helpful video!
I've recieved my very first Mac today, and now it works like charm with my 2TB Zike drive.
Wonderful! And thank you very much.
I set this up earlier and reset my M1 Mini! It’s working great! Using the OWC enclosure and a new WD Black drive. Very happy.
Always look forward to your videos, I love the way you explain. I’m waiting for my M4 MacMini to arrive which by the way thanks to one of your previous videos I was able to purchase from Amazon and saved about $100. I’ll definitely buy one of these 2TB external drives using your easy to follow directions. Thanks again for what you do.
Thanks for that hint about the Thunderbolt 4 versus T-bolt 3! It explained a few problems I've had and I'll slowly be moving all the drives over to T-bolt 4 enclosures.
Also, going forward... Adam Engst of "TidBITS" just wrote a great write-up on doing backups of your machines that dovetails nicely with your approach for splitting off your data volume (User Directory) from the systems volume. Sequoia basically broke making bootable backups and this approach helps avoid that problem.
Hello Lance I am using a Samsung - T9 Portable SSD 4TB, Up to 2,000MB/s, USB 3.2 Gen2 - Black and was able to delete any app downloaded to the original applications folder by selecting show contents and then selecting get info, select the plus sign to add permissions for my main user. Change the read only to the read and write. Then highlight that user and select make it the owner. Then select apply all permissions to the contents. Once that has been done you can delete it after you copy it to the external. One thing extra I did was create a symbolic link on the original applications folder to the new location on the external which allowed me to update the app any time it became available. Hopefully this helps. I am sure you could explain it to the followers better. But thanks for your help. Works great! T-Fitz
good stuff thanks.
Thanks for that! However, I'm still waiting for my external drive and I've already set up my main user... so I'll most likely create a new 'backupuser' and re-create everything from scratch. I need to see you other video about moving the user data from internal to the external drive using the Time Machine... maybe this would be easier for me. Great vid anyways, your # is really helping :)
Thank you, I’m excited to perform your tutorial and get my Man Mini Pro up and running. Question….? You did say that as you plug in the external, you had to reformat the drive…..AS IT COMES IN AS EXFAT, ECT….BUT YOU DID NOT SAY TO REFORMAT INTO THE DESIRED SETTING. Which setting do I reformat this drive into ? Thank you again…..next up…..watching your video on moving all my data from my old iMac, to the new Mac…..external hard drive. A BIG THANK YOU.
@@panamouse6178 I do say it, format in APFS with disk utility.
@ ok, my mistake…thank you again…!!!!!
You have a great voice. You should do ASMR videos. Also, great walkthrough for first time users. I'm doing exactly this on my new M4 Mini.
Thanks for doing this Video. You must be getting sick of this subject. I've watched all your videos (multiple times) and this is the clearest ! Great job. However, I'm still having a really hard time figuring out how to get my stuff from my other Mac Mini (M1) to the new Mini 4. I watched your migration video several times and am still not getting it right. Do you think time machine is still the way to go? I would really love it if you did a redo of the "How to Migrate your data..." video to walk people like me through it. I don't know, maybe I'm hopeless...
@@francescodamico1123 yes you can copy your user folder to the external drive “users” folder from you Time Machine backup and then creat the same user account name in users and groups then activate it like I show in the videos then use apples, migration tool to migrate your data, from your other Mac excluding user. I guess I have to go back and watch it, I might make another video on it. Thanks for watching any direct question I’ll try to help
THIS new video really made my day!!! Thanks a thousand times, Lance! Yes, my next step is to migrate the time machine data. I will have another look at your current video... hope I won't stick 🙏
Another great video Lance. I asked this question in the original video, but still not sure how to proceed. My wife and I will be using the Mini. I would like to have separate accounts, but not have her with Admin privs, if I can avoid it. Can I just have myself as the Admin and set her up as a Standard user using the same steps? Thanks
@@jw15540 sure that should be fine, you will be sharing apps and but be aware that you can access each others account unlike when accounts are internal when on an external drive You can set permissions on each user account with setting them on the individual user home folders, I was playing around with this and will make a video about it soon. Also be sure to have a backup user admin internal account.
Oh that FlexisSpot table is amazing !
@@djsrimusic love them!
Very informative video. I'm definitely going to use this approach with my next Apple purchase.
I have a satachi enclosure with samsung 990 pro it is supposed to be thunderbolt 4 but i am having the same problem of deleting the small apps from the internal drive after copying them. How to know if I am really using thunderbolt 4, write and read are both 3100 mb/s. Great video you are the only one who faced the same problem as me on youtube
Those speeds are def thunderbolt 4. It’s a permissions thing, log into your backup internal user account if you don’t have one create one that’s an administrator and you can delete the apps from there, but Apple system apps cannot be deleted like mail, Safari, etc.,
Hi there, thanks again for the video. I am setting up my new Mini M4 and the Settings in the App store don’t show the option to download the 1gb Plus programs in a different folder. Am i missing sth? Downloaded programs are installed on the internal drive, unless I interfere.
Thanks!
Awesome video! However I found a problem when downloading a program, had to install it on the "macintoch HD", then copied it to the new "Applications"-folder on the external drive. All this time it showed on the "launchpad", but when I deleted the program from the internal drive, it dissapeared from the launchpad. The program still works from the external drive and i think I set up the sim-link correctly... Any advise on this? Many thanks, keep up the great work!
Very helpful, thanks!
Those desks are awesome. I friend of mine has two.🙂
Lance, my old computer is maxed out on space from my wife's endless iPhone photos and videos. I am hoping this will fix it. After I do this do i just follow your video on migration even though I have already done a lot of the external user set up here?
@@ES-yi8vv best is to make a timemachine backup with your wife’s user account, then copy the user folder to the new external drive from the timemachine backup, open the TM drive and inside the most recent backup will be the users folder maybe watch my timemachine video, then create the internal user with the same name as the one you copied and go to advanced user options and point it to the external path on the external drive. Then you can migrate just the Macintosh HD data excluding the user account if you want to. You will also have to tell Apple photos to use the new external photo library as your system iCloud library that way new stuff will download to the external drive I show that in one of my other videos.
Hi Lance, thanks for posting these. I agree that the external should be encrypted...but that begs the question what happens when you boot the machine? At what point will it ask for the password, and how does that effect startup, or wake from sleep?
ua-cam.com/video/prTRkkmgCTE/v-deo.html
Hello, I just found out that you can delete app from internal application folder going to your Launchpad and delete it from there.
Love your videos. I followed your similar tutorial from a month ago. Just curious why the new video. Is there a change from a month ago? Thx
@@metaflexa the only change really is setting up the internal account first and then creating the external account second and a couple of things about the applications folder, which is the same link I show at the end of the video which is pretty sweet and the fact that because of apples update 15.2 you cannot just drag and drop your home folder to copy it off your internal drive to your external drive because you’ll get an error due to two little cash files that are in the user library.
Thx. Will I need to redo my set up then or can I keep it the way we did it last month?
@ no your fine. You can do what I did with the applications folder if you want
Really appreciate it. I got my base model Mac mini m4 up and running. A few questions though:
1. My MacOS is 15.1. will everything be affected upon upgrade to the newest version?
2. Is it okay to rename the testuser after everything is successful?
Thanks a lot for your kind informative video ❤
Random question but is it normal for my internal drive to slowly fill up even though i set my external ssd as my home drive ?
Can you use migration assistant to restore from Time Machine of an internal home folder on a MacBook to an external home folder on a base mini with 2GB external?
@@dancharles4890 it’s actually best to just go into the Time Machine back up your most recent one and drag and drop the home folder to the external drive and just do what I show in the video here to set it up in users and groups then use migration assistant to only import the data from your Macintosh HD not the user account. You can watch my time machine video for more info..
@@MacSoundSolutions Do you mean the one titled "How to Migrate your data to your Mac Mini’s external Home!"? If so, thanks, that seems to describe what I need.
@ yes that’s the one
How is this video different from the previous video walking through this process? Is there some update that makes the previous instructions faulty?
Nevermind... I found the pinned note on the former instruction video. Thank you for all this great information!
Does this setup also work with the previous Mac mini ??
So at first I did what you did on the first video that needed and external home to my Mac mini m4 that was already mounted or opened. I did it on OWC 1 tb external drive but now I would like to transfer my home drive on an 2 tb drive that I bought from OWC, can I just copy my 1tb home drive on the 2tb and then switch the drive from enclosure. I have the 2 tb mounted in another portable enclosure. They both work from the USB-C on the back of the mini.
yes you can move the nvme from one drive to another and copy your home folder. If you have issues watch my last video three ways to move your home folder.
Any solution on spotlight to work for iCloud documents?
@@kumarkishnani no not yet. I have a few ideas that I haven’t tried yet. I will post if I figure it out.
@@MacSoundSolutions gr8 work, looking forward to it.
@@kumarkishnani I actually figures out a way to index stuff but it is my first attempt and I am not a programmer at all I wish I were. But I created a script to a folder on icloud drive and used folder actions and when you add a new file it creates an alias to a folder in the external user account and then spotlight indexes it and bingo it is now searchable, spotlight finds the alias and then you can launch the file on icloud drive. I thing I know just the guy to work on this cause it ain't me....
@@MacSoundSolutions sounds like a progress, thanks for doing this... I'm also in touch with apple and their technical team is looking into this as well, if I get any solution I'll update it here.
Hello @macsoundsolutionsinc I was wondering if I have everything set up like you have here how would I go about adding my wife and child an account on the computer set up the same way? Would they have to be admin accounts? Could I set their accounts up to go to the external drive also but not be able to delete data from the external drive?
Yes you can create a folder in the externaldrive/users/wifename then go to users and groups add user wifename and then set the path to the external drive/users/wifename you can make her an admin or just standard when setting up. Keep in mind that all users can access eachothers accounts when on the external drive so you can set permissions on the drive to only allow that user to enter their user folder with a password. I plan to make a multi user video soon.
I have enjoyed all your videos on this topic, Lance. I plan to transfer my existing account from my current iMac setup to my MacMini, following the advice you gave in an earlier video (TimeMachine and Migration Assistant etc.) I wonder if you have any advice about the Shared folder on my current system. Can I just copy it into the new Users folder on my external drive?
@@handfp yes you can
@MacSoundSolutions thank you
You talk about an additional account for video editing.
What does that look like.
Can you explain that in a small video the how and why you added this account....
Thx in advance
Franz from the Netherlands
It’s just my main account that lives on the external SSD Zike drive the account I created in this is only for the demo to show you how to do it so I have two accounts my back up internal user for in case anything goes wrong with the external I can still get back into my computer and my external main account, which is exactly the same as I show in the video, but I have 4 TB of storage as I rated two drives together, which is a little risky, but I get 6000 MB per second read and right and that’s what I’m using for Final Cut Pro and I just keep my Final Cut Pro libraries in the movies folder and then that gets backed up to my Time Machine Dr. but maybe I will do a video on my whole set up.
@MacSoundSolutions Look forward to that video my friend, I think many will like a video account and a video on this....
Thx
Absolutely love your way of explaining things Lance, thank you!!
I followed your directions on my new M4 Mac Mini last night using a nice quick nvme drive, followed your encryption directions too.
All was good until I fired it up this morning and got an error saying “you can’t log in at this time due to an error” (or something like that)… I can log into the internal backupuser account, but not the asking in the external ssd… any clues on what I’ve broken or how to fix it? Thanks!!
You need to mount the encrypted drive with the internal user and save the password in the keychain. Then always log into the internal user first and then into your external user, you can set the internal to auto log in to save time. And also have fast user switching turned on. It’s one extra step, but there’s really no work around the drive has to be mounted first before you can log into it.
@@MacSoundSolutionsthat’s where I went wrong 🤦🏻♂️. I decrypted the drive and got it working, I’ll encrypt it again (and wait longer now that I’ve migrated more assets over 😂) and look into the auto login/fast switching etc.
…so, I guess if you never shut the mini down, that would also avoid this issue as well?
@@BWRM.Cambridge I have a video called encrypt your hone check it out. I have found you can also get info on the drive and set permissions to be only the one user. I have to play around with it a bit more but no on else can access the drive on the same mac, but I took the drive and plugged it into my mac book air and could access the drive.
@@BWRM.Cambridge ua-cam.com/video/prTRkkmgCTE/v-deo.html
Hi thank you for all you are doing on this! I followed your instructions and as far as I can tell everything worked like a champ however, it seems like the main drive has 27.5 gb already used on it. Does this sound correct? Yours seemed like much less was being used. Any suggestions? I am starting with a brand new mac mini. Thank you.
Yes between the OS etc that is about right, also if you download a bunch of those screensavers, they will eat up quite a bit of space
Sounds about right, if you downloaded any of the screensavers they go to your system drive but there is also a work around for that,
Quick question would be what do you do with the 200+GB internal storage you are left with. For me, i dont have a lot of apps, but i have a lot of data that swamps my internal drive. For my use case id be tempted to have the external user drive for my users home directories, but keep all the applications on the internal drive.
This is a great series of videos. Its not often i return to read comments on videos, but your viewers are obviously really engaged on this topic.
@@chriscrowe3527 you can totally do that. Just leave your applications on the internal drive and have your user account on the external that way all your photos iOS, backups downloads, etc. etc. all go to the external drive and you can use Time Machine to back up the internal and the external all at once on a separate drive of course for timemachine and make sure the external home drive is not in the Time Machine excluded drive list.
Hi, I bought the LG Ultra Wide monitor 40 inches the 95C I use the Apple cables plugging into the thunderbolt cable into the ports of the monitor in my Mac mini Pro. I turn on the monitor and I see the LG letters floating on screen I turn on the Mac mini Pro And nothing shows up on the monitor screen. I hear the speaker from the Mac mini pro talking about keyboard, etc. what am I doing wrong? Isn’t it plug-in play every tutorial on taking the monitor out of the box in the Mac mini Pro it shows already on screen beginning to set up the computer. I can’t even get there. Any ideas why I’ve got nothing do I have to buy a new mouse and keyboard? Shouldn’t the connection of the thunderbolt bring the Mac mini Pro on screen. Any thoughts would be greatly appreciated.
@@panamouse6178 what Apple cables are you referring to? The Mac mini only comes with a power cable you need a thunderbolt for cable, but you should just be able to use the HDMI to at least get Signal out of the monitor and then set the monitor to be on the HDMI input. Also, the Mac mini really wants to see the Apple trackpad or mouse and the Apple keyboard. Otherwise, you need a wired keyboard to get it set up with other Bluetooth devices that are non-Apple, but you should still be getting something on the screen, showing a flashing mouse or something
@ turns out, it was the need to plug in the HDMI cable. I then got the Mac Mini Pro on screen. But, we are without Wifi, so I cannot get to use your video as guidance. I’m sort of hampered as I am 3 weeks from hip replacement surgery, so I’ve been limited. Once I get wifi back, tomorrow, I’ll begin to use your video. Thank you ever so much for your insight. It did the trick.
Hi Lance! Thanks for this video. I followed step by step. All went well, except the setting in the Appstore: I dont have this option "Download and install to a separate disk" visible. Any idea how to solve? Thanks
@@heinerlanz you have to update to 15.1 or later now 15.2
@@MacSoundSolutions You are right! Many thanks.
Hello Lance, Your videos are alway very informative.. would be more practical to get a OWCminiStack STX with a addition of WD 1TB WD_Black SN770 NVMe M.2 SSD For the Home Folder.. and a WD 10TB Gold for Storage...? I just got this combo for my older Macmini M1 for photoshop use..
Can this by applied to extend the life of an M1 imac? My imac also only has 256gb soldered in memory and I am running out of memory.
Yes you can do this with any mac. You will want to transfer all your data onto the external drive. check out my last video on the three different ways to do it.
Thank You For Your Videos.... If I were to add Firefox to my home folder Applications and use Firefox.... I noticed Firefox writes data to the SSD looking at Activity Monitor and adding the colum "Bytes Written" Does the data that gets written get written to the MacHD or the external Drive? Reason for asking is you only get so much data writes to the SSD before it dies So I rather my External Die Before My M4 Mac internal dies cause then I will have a paper weight
Most Firefox files will go to the external but to make sure all the cache files etc To Ensure Everything Stays External
1. Check the Profile Path: Go to about:profiles in Firefox. It will show the location of the current profile directory.
2. Adjust Firefox Settings:
• You can set a custom cache directory by modifying the browser.cache.disk.parent_directory preference in about:config (e.g., point it to a specific folder on your external drive).
Any way to transfer the big stuff, like Xcode, Android Studio etc...?
If you user terminal you can copy the enter user account to an external drive but some apps are multi user only and some need to be installed on the internal drive. I used to dabble in Xcode a little bit, but I don’t now and I don’t use android studio so hard for me to say.
Hi Lance, zike drive does not ship to israel(sadly) can you kindly recommend another enclosure? Thanks for the amazing content It's appreciated!
Try Acasis www.acasis.com/collections/thunderbolt™ use my discount code Lance15
@MacSoundSolutions thank you lance. I really appreciate you taking the time to answer!
I apologize in advance for these basic questions. What is the purpose of this setup? Are Apps limited to 256GB even if I use the Samsung T7 (which I already own) as an external drive? Although there are limitations with a USB 3.2, would you still use the Samsung T7 if that is all you had? I plan to use the Mac Mini for surfing the web, word processing, saving pictures, and some Apps. I am not too concerned with speed unless it will be painfully slow. BTW This is my first apple computer but I have used the iphone and ipad for many years. Thanks!!
Perhaps Lance will give you extra details, but the purpose is mainly to save the high $$$ cost Apple charge for extra storage. You can get a USB 4 external drive with 2TB which runs as fast as the internal 256 GB drive (maybe even faster) for less than the cost of upgrading to the 512 GB Mac Mini. Generally Apps are not limited to 256 GB because a lot of Apps can be installed or moved to the external SSD. Some Apps will only work from the internal SSD, such as the main OS Apps and a few 3rd party Apps. All the best.
Will a Thunderbolt 3 drive still have the permissions issue when deleting a smaller app?
@@billykellum it shouldn’t but if the app was originally downloaded by the internal user account, you most likely will have to log into that account to delete it.
Hi Lance, if you’re setting the Zike drive up as RAID 0, how are you implementing your backups? And, is that RAID 0 decision because you want more space with faster speed? Great series of videos btw.
I’m using the raid 0 as my main user account and for video editing then I have the Acasis dual and NVMe hub in Raid zero also and that’s my time machine back up. The whole set up is pretty risky. I don’t know if I’d recommend it but I am getting great speeds, maybe unnecessarily so I just like experimenting and the mini is not my main work computer but it is my UA-cam editing machine and I keep a back up of my time machine back up. I’ve had it for about two weeks this way and it’s working well you just really have to look out for static charges with these externally enclosures. I walk around and slippers all day on a carpet and touching an enclosure with a static charge can make them unmount or freak out I have found, so I’ve placed them where I’m not gonna touch them. The drive when it’s in the plastic enclosure never had the issue, but I removed them to see if it heat dissipation was better and now they are vulnerable to the static charge as well. But I’m getting twice speed that you would get with just a single enclosure and my time machine backups are super fast.
@ Thank you for answering my query so quickly and fully! I have the ACASIS dual enclosure that I’m using for Lightroom as RAID 0 but I haven’t set up a backup yet! I need to get another dual drive (or 2) for iCloud and the home folder. If you were buying a dual drive now, which would you buy, Zike or ACASIS?
@ they are both good. I have two thunderbolt five Acasis enclosures that I have to test out next and I have two Zeke drives and they have been really rocksolid with the Oracle and Vietnamese. They do get pretty warm the team group and Vietnamese stay quite a bit cooler, but they’re not as fast so cooling is a factor. I don’t love the fact that the Acasis have fans on them. I’m sure that cools things down, but I don’t wanna hear that sound but if you’re doing a large file transfer and you’re walking out of the room, can’t hurt to turn on that fan
@@MacSoundSolutions thanks again Lance, fan noise becomes a lower priority when you get older! Something for you to look forward to? Tinnitus, sea gulls, other birds, my old intel iMac’s fan and music make the Acasis fan pale into insignificance!😊
Thanks for the video Lance. I got confused on a couple of points. Why didn't you end up using the Zike drive here? Was that because you didn't have a spare one to use for the video but did have a spare T7? Also there was no mention of deleting those cache files like in an earlier video. Is that because it's not an issue for a brand new install, but only when copying over a home folder from an existing setup? I'm looking forward to using your method when my new Mac Mini arrives in a few weeks. I have an OWC Express 1M2 with 2TB SSD.
@@Somersetinla yes I am using the T7 just to demo, I did not want to start over with my dual raid 0 Zike drives :) the cache files only effect drag and drop. Not doing that in this video as showing a brand new Mac set up as folks were requesting it.
Hi Lance, quick question: I set up my new Mac Mini one week ago, with external drive, by following your previous 2 videos on this same subject. In those videos you showed to setup the second admin account, the internal backup one, after the external user was setup and the library was already moved to the external drive.
Is this a problem?
Does this mean that the backup user might not work in case I have a problem with the external drive user?
Should I now initialize the Mac mini and go through the whole process again and setup the backup user first, and the external drive user afterward?
Please confirm if possible, as I want to have a clean and working setup. Thanks for your great help on this subject!
@@alemess63 no no no,
You are fine, as long as you have the backup user / admin account you are good. The problem is some people now will get an error if they’re on 15.2 when first dragging and dropping the user account to the external drive, so I’m showing a different way to do that without copying the internal folder which worked great before but now 15.2 through a couple of files in there that keep it from being able to do it without getting an error so this is just another way to set up the external home folder if you’re doing it for the first time
@ thanks!
Im new to mac. Can i download applications like Blender and Visual Studio to the external drive?
Some apps install for all users and will only install internally, most apps you can install for the individual user and the app itself may still install on the internal drive. You can just try dragging it to the external and launching it to see what happens, pro tools, for instance which I use for audio only installs for multi users and has to run off the internal drive, but seeing you’re getting most of your data on the external drive not a big deal to have some of your main apps on the internal drive.
Why Not just install Mac OS on the external drive? Any reasons against?
@@joeh.6384 a-please intelligence only works if booting off the internal drive, but there is a hack I have not tried.
@@MacSoundSolutions Hi Lance, are you able to share any details of the work around hack? I don't think I've heard anyone else mention it. Thanks! :)
@@Somersetinla github.com/Kyle-Ye/XcodeLLMEligible
I’m just wondering what type of sound mixer you have that’s in your video?
It’s the MIDAS M32r the original one they redesigned it and put robbery buttons on it and a little less fader travel. I honestly use it just as a hub for different audio sources and I do love it and I use one for work for multi tracking live shows they’re great little boards you can pick one up used for pretty cheap, it is limited to 48K 24bit
@ oh limited to 48 K sucks. I work with classical musicians which normally needs at least 96k. Any recommends? Any recommends on mixers if you where looking at blinging up?
@ lots of folks use Yamaha, Midas Pro, Digi Co, we have a rack of NEVE Pres 1070PX with Dante for higher sample rate multi tracking and go up to 192k that’s what we use for out higher end broadcast captures but might be a bit colored for classical, great for live drums etc.
@@MacSoundSolutions thank you! I’ll check these out. I normally work with small ensembles, up to 6 and with a reluctant stretch, if pushed, 8. Principally classical music. I haven’t worked with drums; well in the long past. But grand pianos, pianos of all shapes, wood instrumental, string in the violin, violas, cello and these variations with brass etc that encompass orchestral arrangements.
Thanks for your thoughts, it’s very kind!
What issuesor problems have you experienced when macOS gets updated or a new version?
@@ozarkcanoer non this time around just can’t drag and drop the home folder to another drive.
Tell us how to disable Apple Intelligence so it doesn’t use 7-21GB of space.
Go to system settings / Apple intelligence and Siri/ turn it off. If you install your OS on the external drive AI cannot run.
Hi Lance, I have already setup my new mac mini logged in with my apple id. Is it still possible to move Home to external ssd ?
@@vjkumar6124 yes watch my video before this one, a Time Machine backup might be best or use terminal. You can try drag and drop if you are on 15.1.1 but 15.2 has an issue. If it copies with drag g and drop you are good but you may get an error. I have a new terminal command I will be posting and that copies everything without logging out. Will post it soon.
@ Thank you, I’ll. check out previous video and look out for new one. I am on 15.2 version.
The Morganout channel showed how to setup an 'iCloud' drive on an external drive, making a shared cloud drive for different accounts on different machines. From my understanding even a 5GB account can act as a conduit for TBs of files. Is this correct? I'm asking you because she told me to pay more attention if I want to understand rather than answer my question about iCloud storage.
@@geoffwales8646 I saw the post but have not watched, I’ll check it out. And get back.
@@MacSoundSolutions cheers
@@MacSoundSolutions *Morganaut
@ yeah she is doing pretty much what I’m doing here although just for iCloud account and then sharing it with her internal account to make it accessible but no, you cannot just having a five gig account. All she’s showing is that you can store your iCloud data on an external drive not eating up your internal storage space on your computer and share it with your internal account. To use up a terabyte iCloud external drive you need a terabyte iCloud account.
@@MacSoundSolutions Thanks. I also have a Family account, which adds another level of difficulty.
Hi Lance, I followed your instruction and use the Sandisk 3.2 usb C external drive as a main storage for my new mac mini M4. Everything went well until recent days I got a problem is that everytime the mac mini goes on sleep mode, it automatically reject the external drive, so when turned back on, a message appeared like " your external home drive was not rejected correctly" and it got some apps stored in the external drive frozen. I have to restart the mac mini every single time this happens. Any solution for that? I haven't updated the mac mini to sequoia 15.2 yet. Many thanks!
@@thecoolestagent some drives don’t like sleeping you might find if you have it attached to a powered hub that the computer will then sleep as the hub stays on keeping power to the drive. Do you have it connected in the back of the computer? Some drives work with sleep mode and some do not all you really have to do is set your monitor sleep and not the mini as it uses so little power when it’s idle anyway. You don’t want your drive ejecting all the time because it can corrupt it. You can lose data, etc. and always have a back up of your home folder via Time Machine or whatever you use.
Yes, I have it connected via the back of the Mac mini. Thanks Lance!
Does external user folder still break iCloud Drive Documents and Desktop with Spotlight or is there now a fix?
My spotlight is broken and I’m still looking for a solution.
@ It’s frustrating that this substantial - and to me dealkiller - limitation is never mentioned in all the how-to’s by everyone touting it. The only solution I’ve found was to revert to a conventional setup with the User Folder on the internal drive. But you can get the majority of the benefit by moving Photos and Music libraries and most applications to the external drive.
Yes I need to post the negatives, but I was playing with a script today with folder action setup and I’m no programmer, but I was able to create aliases for every new file put into iCloud Drive documents folder in my user folder called iCloud aliases and bingo the aliases were indexed by spotlight. I think I’m on to something it’s not a fix yet but someone who knows what they’re doing could definitely solve this as aliases take up no space and they make the iCloud drive searchable but if you have multiple folders, you have to set it up for each folder. Plus to index pre existing files in iCloud you have to remove them then put them back in and the aliases get created. Pretty happy with myself for coming up with that, will play with it more tomorrow as my brain is fried.
@ If you’ve found a solution, I’m interested. But I tested aliases a couple weeks ago, and while aliases are synced to iCloud Drive, the files and folders they reference are not. Files aliased cannot be accessed from any other device or the web via iCloud Drive.
@ but other devices do their own indexing… so not a problem for them, so far I was able to create folders on iCloud Drive, creat aliases for all the files in the different folders and then use the script to update when new files are then added to the folders I set up. All searchable on the mini, if a new file is added from an external computer the alias is created on the external home folder and gets indexed by spotlight. So while a bit of a pain to set up if you already have a bunch of folders in folders on the iCloud dtive for me I don’t use it that much cause I use drop box. Now the issue is if you delete a file to have the alias also delete.
Nice and instructive video. Great job. Thanks. Alas, the Orico discount code doesn't work.
@@CeesTax yeah I don’t know what’s going on there. They keep telling me it works and I try it and it doesn’t and they say that’s because I’ve already used it once and it only works once but they’re pretty heavily discounted on Amazon as it is the code does only work in the US so they say
My Mac mini disconnects the SSD in sleep mode. The problem is that the Home folder has been moved to an external SSD and I can't log in. Is there any program solution that allows you to properly wake up/sleep the SSD drive to which the main User has been transferred?
It really depends on the drive. I have found that when my Acasis hub is connected to the Mac mini my drives sleep just fine even though one driver is connected to the hub and two connected to the mini, and my single Zike drive slept no problem without a hub, you definitely don’t want your drive ejecting when it goes to sleep, I would just sleep your monitor and not your system if it’s doing that because you can lose data or it can corrupt the drive, what kind of drive is it?
@@MacSoundSolutions Hi Lance,thank you in advance for your help. I am using direct connection via TB4: OWC Express 1M2 with WD Black SN850X 4TB SSD. On Mac Mini M4 I have 2 Users: Rescue with Home folder on PC and second with Home folder on SSC. I prepared the new Mac according to your instructions and the first couple of restarts of the SSD was without problems. Now I put the Mac to sleep and I get a message that the disk has disconnected and what's more I am unable to find it without disconnecting TB4 several times. So now I have to start from the Rescue user and only later after recognizing the SSC can I log in to my User.
This is a bit scary, since I consider the OWC Express + WD Black setup myself. Have you ensured there are no power saving settings that cause this issue? (from Internet, "Go to Energy Saver window from System Preferences and ensure you deselect “Put hard disk to sleep when possible” checkbox. If the issue persists, try reinstalling hard drive software.")
@@TheChrisHawk Hi Chris, Energy save settings are off and Software update is not available for WD SSD, only factory Software is available right now.
@@pawelt822 some drives just don’t support sleep, I prefer to not sleep the computer but just set the monitor to sleep, if you connect your drive to a powered hub which might slow the speeds a bit you may be able to sleep it then as the powered hub won’t power down the drive. with my exact drive connected directly to the Mac mini and my Time Machine Dr. connected to my hub. I can sleep the computer and the dish do not eject. Also, if I do sleep, the computer and the drives don’t go to sleep, which was happening when I didn’t have the hub connected the Mac would just wake back up immediately. It would not sleep so it never ejected the drives on me, which is not good if it does that you should just shut down the Mac, even if you have to force shut it down by holding the power button until it turns off then reboot you don’t wanna have to go into recovery mode just to mount the drive, shutting it down and rebooting should do that.
I ordered that Zike drive and did not realize it shipped from Hong Kong. I ordered on 1/2 and it is still in Hong Kong. What a let down. 😢
It took 6 days to arrive here in Norway, ordered just before X-mas.
Sorry to hear it, they have gotten back ordered a couple of times but seem to be good about getting them out pretty quickly.
I stand corrected. Order placed on 12/31. Checked the tracking and it is still in Hong Kong. 👍🏻
I think this direction is wrong. You keep all your apps and user data on internal and then all data, sound and video files, go on external. I've been doing it the way for 25 years and it works. You only need 256-500gig internal.
If you need more than 256 GB the base model would be insufficient. Lance's method seems to focus on not needing more than the base model, as the extra costs for the 500 GB version are way more than using external SSD. I got the OMC Extreme 1M2 with a 3rd party 2TB SSD for less than Apple charge for the 256 GB upgrade.
Each to his and her own but wrong is not correct, it works great. It keeps all your user data in one place not spread across different drives and folders and is easy back up. Your way is not “wrong” either. I did that my self for a long time and preferred to keep my system drive small until Apple came out with iCloud , iOS, backups, etc and on and on with ways of filling up your internal storage.
Like you I've been doing things as you have for 25 years, however until the last few years Apple never prevented me from upgrading my storage or ram. In fact it was common for users to upgrade their CPU, ram or storage as needed. Unfortunately now Apple has made it nearly impossible to do such things. Soldering their ram chips, etc. You may not be bothered by paying over $800 for a 2TB of storage but for most of us it's crazy. What made the Macintosh thrive throughout the years was the community of users who found solutions and shared their knowledge. If you prefer the tried and true method great. But don't call something that was born out of necessity wrong...
would like to hear your comments on Morgonaut's method of using a separate iCloud account, shown here: ua-cam.com/video/XAl3WXLNTak/v-deo.htmlsi=Swbq2Da2cPpcMhoM. I think I like your method better, but maybe hers is more robust in case apple changes the rules? Dunno
the external user account has been around since OSX first came out, but you never know, her method is to just get your icloud on an external drive, and one thing to note that she doesn't say in the video is you loose the ability to index icloud drive when it is on an external drive. I am working on a fix for that,
@ Interesting. Thank you.
Lance, thanks for the great step by step! I downloaded about 5 apps, moved them over to the external application folder & deleted the same new apps on the internal drive. I was able to do this for all new apps except 1Password, I could not delete the app on the internal drive. On the external drive the 1PW app wouldn’t open & it wouldn’t let me place it in the application folder, it kept going right above it. When I did finally add it to the application folder I got this error message, “The operation canit be completed because some items had to be skipped. For each item, choose File - Get Info, make sure
"Locked* is deselected, and then check the Sharing & Permissions section. When you are sure the items are unlocked and not designated as Read Only or No Access, try again “, I’ve decided to leave the 400mb app on the internal drive, any suggestions why this is happening? BTW, I’m using a OWC thunderbolt 4 enclosure & WD_BLACK 2TB SN850X NVMe, I had to log into the internal user account to delete the apps that were copied to the external, OS 15.2 Thank you!
Some apps have to be installed on the internal drive because they put files into the system and are tied to it and these apps are usually apps installed for all users on the computer for instance, ProTools my audio app can only be installed on the internal drive. A lot of apps are just all in one package And can be moved around, but some cannot.
Hi Lance, I just buy a mac mini and the enclosure with the ssd. When I plug the enclosure the mac mini doesn’t recognize any externas disk. Do you know what could happen?
@@Alvaroglow you need to go to Finder settings and then click the check boxes hard discs external discs if that’s not working going into disk utility and go to view in the menu bar make sure it’s set to show all devices. Format the external drive in APFS
Many thnks Lance- I already check that menus and still doesn’t working. The external disk it’s a SSD Kingston Fury Renegade, 2TB, M.2 2280, NVMe PCIe 4.0 x4 and the enclosure it’s a normal of 10gbps.