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honestone33
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Successful Installation of Catalina on an External SSD, along with Migration of Needed "Data"
There seems to be an issue with the thread "macOS Catalina (10.15) is now available", as it does not seem to be "accepting" any more posts since yesterday. So, I am starting this thread to answer an important question posed by MacInWin in post #59 on that thread, in which he ran into an issue with the Migration of information to a Thumb Drive. In any event, here goes.
First, let me say that I initially posted this in my Catalina "environment". After doing my usual weekly tasks with Onyx, Tech Tool Pro, and SuperDuper! earlier for both of my Macs, I started the process to try and answer Jake's last question, from my Mojave Mac Mini:
"Has anybody done a clean install and then used Migration to get their data to the drive on an external drive? Is there something hidden that I need to do/check/uncheck/fix/sprinkle fairy dust on?"
That is, after copying all the TV Series files I had on my Samsung 860 EVO 500 gig external SSD to a flash drive, I launched Disk Utility on the Mini to Erase and Format that Samsung External SSD as APFS. No problemo, as Arnie says! When I then "asked" Disk Utility to partition that SSD, a dialogue popped up, suggestion that it is easier to just add another Volume to that SSD, as all such APFS volumes share the space. So, that is what I did, and voila, the SSD had two volumes on it, both the same size, 500 Gig (remember, the size of the SSD is 500 gig).
I renamed one of those volumes to "Catalina Test", and the other one as "Test Volume". I next downloaded the complete OS 10.15 Installation file from the App Store, and quit the process when the download was done. I made a copy of that Installation file to another location on my Mini, and removed the one inside the Applications Folder (no sense waisting space). I then launched that installation file, and did a clean, fresh, "virgin" installation of Catalina onto that external volume "Catalina Test". At the completion of the installation, (as expected) it asked me if I wanted to migrate information from another Mac, a Time Machine Backup, or another backup. I chose that, selected the internal SSD inside my Mac Mini, and away it went. Took a little time, but it successfully completed. All my apps, files, settings, etc. transferred fine (even my 2 32 bit apps Quicken 2007 and Magic Number Machine, although they are kind of "greyed out" on my Doc (no surprise there)).
I have tested some applications, and they seem to work fine: Google Chrome (the browser I am using for this post), Thunderbird, and VLC. "iTunes" is fine. I printed a document from LibreOffice, and my printer is happy!
I might run a few more apps, but I prefer to wait until at least the .1 version of Catalina arrives. What I would appreciate is if someone could explain the benefits, drawbacks, etc. of just adding another volume to an APFS formatted device instead of doing an actual, old fashioned partition.
One other thing that is "new', although some folks have mentioned this already. Besides the two initial Volumes I had setup on that external SSD, entitled "Catalina Test" and "Test Volume", after installing Catalina on the Catalina Volume, and after the migration, there is now another volume entitled "Catalina Test Data". Each of those 3 volumes has a "size" of 500 gig (I suspect that means all shared), and the amount of Used Space for each one is as follows:
Catalina Test - 10.59 Gig
Catalina Test Data - 59.9 Gig
Test Volume - 922 KB
My internal SSD on my Mac Mini (where everything was migrated from) shows Used Space as 71.48 Gig.
One caveat: Jake was trying to do this migration to a thumb drive, whereas I did it to an SSD. Not sure how much of a difference that makes.
There seems to be an issue with the thread "macOS Catalina (10.15) is now available", as it does not seem to be "accepting" any more posts since yesterday. So, I am starting this thread to answer an important question posed by MacInWin in post #59 on that thread, in which he ran into an issue with the Migration of information to a Thumb Drive. In any event, here goes.
First, let me say that I initially posted this in my Catalina "environment". After doing my usual weekly tasks with Onyx, Tech Tool Pro, and SuperDuper! earlier for both of my Macs, I started the process to try and answer Jake's last question, from my Mojave Mac Mini:
"Has anybody done a clean install and then used Migration to get their data to the drive on an external drive? Is there something hidden that I need to do/check/uncheck/fix/sprinkle fairy dust on?"
That is, after copying all the TV Series files I had on my Samsung 860 EVO 500 gig external SSD to a flash drive, I launched Disk Utility on the Mini to Erase and Format that Samsung External SSD as APFS. No problemo, as Arnie says! When I then "asked" Disk Utility to partition that SSD, a dialogue popped up, suggestion that it is easier to just add another Volume to that SSD, as all such APFS volumes share the space. So, that is what I did, and voila, the SSD had two volumes on it, both the same size, 500 Gig (remember, the size of the SSD is 500 gig).
I renamed one of those volumes to "Catalina Test", and the other one as "Test Volume". I next downloaded the complete OS 10.15 Installation file from the App Store, and quit the process when the download was done. I made a copy of that Installation file to another location on my Mini, and removed the one inside the Applications Folder (no sense waisting space). I then launched that installation file, and did a clean, fresh, "virgin" installation of Catalina onto that external volume "Catalina Test". At the completion of the installation, (as expected) it asked me if I wanted to migrate information from another Mac, a Time Machine Backup, or another backup. I chose that, selected the internal SSD inside my Mac Mini, and away it went. Took a little time, but it successfully completed. All my apps, files, settings, etc. transferred fine (even my 2 32 bit apps Quicken 2007 and Magic Number Machine, although they are kind of "greyed out" on my Doc (no surprise there)).
I have tested some applications, and they seem to work fine: Google Chrome (the browser I am using for this post), Thunderbird, and VLC. "iTunes" is fine. I printed a document from LibreOffice, and my printer is happy!
I might run a few more apps, but I prefer to wait until at least the .1 version of Catalina arrives. What I would appreciate is if someone could explain the benefits, drawbacks, etc. of just adding another volume to an APFS formatted device instead of doing an actual, old fashioned partition.
One other thing that is "new', although some folks have mentioned this already. Besides the two initial Volumes I had setup on that external SSD, entitled "Catalina Test" and "Test Volume", after installing Catalina on the Catalina Volume, and after the migration, there is now another volume entitled "Catalina Test Data". Each of those 3 volumes has a "size" of 500 gig (I suspect that means all shared), and the amount of Used Space for each one is as follows:
Catalina Test - 10.59 Gig
Catalina Test Data - 59.9 Gig
Test Volume - 922 KB
My internal SSD on my Mac Mini (where everything was migrated from) shows Used Space as 71.48 Gig.
One caveat: Jake was trying to do this migration to a thumb drive, whereas I did it to an SSD. Not sure how much of a difference that makes.
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