Mojave clone hard drive to ssd
Like it or not, in HFS+ there’s one layer known as either volume or partition. As anyone using a Mac before High Sierra, or still using Time Machine, will have used HFS+, the terms mustn’t confuse with those. In Disk Utility, the terms used need to be clear to ordinary users. To be strictly accurate, according to Apple, the two layers in APFS are known as container and file-system. The problem here isn’t pedantry, it’s confusion. Then you can select either in the Startup Disk pane and restart into each as you want. Now you run your macOS installers, setting each to install that version of macOS onto the correct containers/partitions. You’ll notice that your disk actually contains two APFS containers and an EFI ‘container’, and the two APFS volumes are listed in separate ‘synthesized’ disks. You should see your external disk divided into two APFS containers, each with its own APFS volume on it. If you now open Terminal and type in the command Note how the containers/partitions are named with odd numbers, from 1 upwards. Your external drive should now have two containers/partitions, each containing a single named volume. Disk Utility then creates the second partition, and once that’s complete, click on the Done button. When you’re happy with the two containers/partitions, click on the Apply button.Īnother sheet will drop down to ask you to confirm the intended split of the single container/partition into two. Select the Untitled item in the left half of the circle, check that its Size is the remaining half, and give it a distinct Name. The first container/partition will then be shown as occupying half the disk. Select the Size box and type in half the size of the original (or whatever you want) and press the Tab key. This drops a sheet down which asks you to confirm whether you want to add a new container/partition or volume: click on the Partition button.Īnother panel drops down for you to adjust the container/partition sizes, starting with the default first container/partition. Select your disk at the left, and check again that it’s the correct disk. The next step is to create a second container/partition. When that completes, your external SSD should now have a single container/partition, with a single volume inside it. Set the Scheme to GUID Partition Map, which allows you to choose APFS as the Format, and enter a Name before clicking on Erase.
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Select the disk at the left, and check again that it’s the correct one. Your first task, once you have rescued any software supplied on the SSD and saved it to your Mac, is to format the disk in APFS. When supplied, most SSDs come pre-formatted in a cross-platform (read: PC) format. If you want one disk to contain two or more bootable copies of macOS, it is therefore best to separate them into individual containers/partitions, as that allows them to have as many volumes as they wish, for recovery, VM, etc. Although it’s possible to squeeze more than one bootable version of macOS onto a single APFS container/partition, it’s normally preferable to keep them in separate containers/partitions, and that may prove to be essential in Catalina. What used to be a ‘blessed volume’ in HFS+ has now grown to four separate volumes in Mojave, and five in Catalina with the addition of its read-only system volume. The structure and layout of bootable disks has become more complicated with recent versions of macOS and with APFS.
![mojave clone hard drive to ssd mojave clone hard drive to ssd](https://www.ubackup.com/screenshot/en/std/backup/disk-backup/select-backup-destination.png)
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Once you have got past the confusing terms and tripwires in Disk Utility, this should prove fairly simple to set up.īefore we get started, it’s important to synchronise terminology, particularly if you’re still more used to using the old Mac Extended file system, HFS+. Sometimes having an external drive that can boot one version of macOS isn’t enough: you want it to boot two (or even more).