First a Fusion Drive is nothing more than a small SSD cache drive which holds the more requested data from the larger HDD. If you where to remove the blade SSD your system would still run! Just using the HDD alone.
***So now lets talk about cloning... We don't clone anymore!*** What worked in older OS9 and early OS-X days is not effective with booting drives. If you had a external data only drive which was setup with ***HFS+*** then cloning it to a second external data drive wouldn't be an issue! But Apple has moved on to ***APFS*** and its a radically different file system structure! And boot drives are more than an OS, apps and data! I haven't used cloning in over 12 years now of fixing peoples systems.
***OK, so cloning is out how do I get my stuff moved over to a new drive?*** Apple supplies the needed tools within the OS! Both within the OS installer as well as an external application: ***''Migration Assistant''***.
So this is the needed actions:
* First run ***''Disk Utility''*** Disk First-Aid function to make sure the drive is in good shape
* Make a full fresh backup of your drive, I would use ***''TimeMachine''*** with a fresh external drive
** ***Now the wrinkle!*** Dual boot or BootCamp installs forces a double backup! You need to treat each OS space independently or use a backup app which runs within each space or has the ability to span the spaces. If you where still running macOS Sierra (10,12.x) which is the last version of MacOS using ***HFS+*** then I can say these dual running backup apps work! But since you are running ***APFS*** make sure you talk with the vendor before you assume it will work (even that may not be enough as the support folks are not always clued in)
Now depending on what your version of macOS is you may have the ability to break the Fusion Drive set if that is all you want to do. Frankly, I've stopped doing that as often I'm replacing both drives so it doesn't matter. Apple has changed things a few times so you need to be careful you use the correct method otherwise you may not break the linkage thinking you had.
Now its time to open the system and replace your drive/s follow these guides:
* [guide|137596]
* [guide|137599]
***BootCamp or Parallels?*** There is no easy answer here as it has a lot to do on what your workflow is and what your aims are. If you have the need to move data between the two environments then BootCamp is the better for many. But as we discovered backing up is a pain! Many folks use an external drive which they either boot up with under Windows or use a VM. I recommend that approach as one of the issues we have discovered is Windows is not as safe from malware as macOS. Apple has Gatekeeper within the systems firmware which protects both the core firmware as well the boot drive from the nasties. Sadly some malware will get around this if they are running on the system as well as the protection is only active within macOS. Having Windows running on its own drive helps.
-
And of course! Make sure you have and maintain a good antivirus and malware app. I personally run two just within may Mac's and my major work system (I'm a photographer) is physically gapped from the internet.
+
And of course! Make sure you have and maintain a good antivirus and malware app. I personally run two just within my Mac's and my major work system (I'm a photographer) is physically gapped from the internet.
***Getting the most out of your system***, an internal PCIe/NVMe blade SSD is by far the best drive to run your OS from, as well as your major apps. Leaving a good portion of the drive empty! That gives both the OS and your apps breathing room for their Virtual RAM, Caching, and scratch Space.
Depending on what your workflow you might use the drive for your current project. Then using your SATA drive as the data drive for your completed work.
Many Pro's use external drives for their active work (over Thunderbolt-3 in your case).
***Becareful!*** USB-C connections doesn't tell you if you are connecting at TB3 (40Gb/s) or just over USB protocol which is a slower connection only giving you 10Gb's! [link|https://www.bhphotovideo.com/explora/computers/tips-and-solutions/thunderbolt-3-usb-31-usb-type-c-making-sense-connections?|Thunderbolt 3, USB 3.1, USB Type-C: Making Sense of Connections]
What is on the other side can also matter, again what your workflow is makes a difference! I work with very large images so my needs are better served by a RAID drive set, a video or music creator will likewise benefit from a RAID.
But! A writer or artist won't need that level of performance. On the other-hand someone doing animations or heavily layered object work would like architects!
That only leaves gamers, they have little need for RAID but using the internal PCIe/NVMe drive makes sense.
First a Fusion Drive is nothing more than a small SSD cache drive which holds the more requested data from the larger HDD. If you where to remove the blade SSD your system would still run! Just using the HDD alone.
***So now lets talk about cloning... We don't clone anymore!*** What worked in older OS9 and early OS-X days is not effective with booting drives. If you had a external data only drive which was setup with ***HFS+*** then cloning it to a second external data drive wouldn't be an issue! But Apple has moved on to ***APFS*** and its a radically different file system structure! And boot drives are more than an OS, apps and data! I haven't used cloning in over 12 years now of fixing peoples systems.
***OK, so cloning is out how do I get my stuff moved over to a new drive?*** Apple supplies the needed tools within the OS! Both within the OS installer as well as an external application: ***''Migration Assistant''***.
So this is the needed actions:
* First run ***''Disk Utility''*** Disk First-Aid function to make sure the drive is in good shape
* Make a full fresh backup of your drive, I would use ***''TimeMachine''*** with a fresh external drive
-
** Now the wrinkle! Dual boot or BootCamp installs forces a double backup! You need to treat each OS space independently or use a backup app which runs within each space or has the ability to span the spaces. If you where still running macOS Sierra (10,12.x) which is the last version of MacOS using ***HFS+*** then I can say these dual running backup apps work! But since you are running ***APFS*** make sure you talk with the vendor before you assume it will work (even that may not be enough as the support folks are not always clued in)
+
** ***Now the wrinkle!*** Dual boot or BootCamp installs forces a double backup! You need to treat each OS space independently or use a backup app which runs within each space or has the ability to span the spaces. If you where still running macOS Sierra (10,12.x) which is the last version of MacOS using ***HFS+*** then I can say these dual running backup apps work! But since you are running ***APFS*** make sure you talk with the vendor before you assume it will work (even that may not be enough as the support folks are not always clued in)
Now depending on what your version of macOS is you may have the ability to break the Fusion Drive set if that is all you want to do. Frankly, I've stopped doing that as often I'm replacing both drives so it doesn't matter. Apple has changed things a few times so you need to be careful you use the correct method otherwise you may not break the linkage thinking you had.
Now its time to open the system and replace your drive/s follow these guides:
* [guide|137596]
* [guide|137599]
***BootCamp or Parallels?*** There is no easy answer here as it has a lot to do on what your workflow is and what your aims are. If you have the need to move data between the two environments then BootCamp is the better for many. But as we discovered backing up is a pain! Many folks use an external drive which they either boot up with under Windows or use a VM. I recommend that approach as one of the issues we have discovered is Windows is not as safe from malware as macOS. Apple has Gatekeeper within the systems firmware which protects both the core firmware as well the boot drive from the nasties. Sadly some malware will get around this if they are running on the system as well as the protection is only active within macOS. Having Windows running on its own drive helps.
And of course! Make sure you have and maintain a good antivirus and malware app. I personally run two just within may Mac's and my major work system (I'm a photographer) is physically gapped from the internet.
***Getting the most out of your system***, an internal PCIe/NVMe blade SSD is by far the best drive to run your OS from, as well as your major apps. Leaving a good portion of the drive empty! That gives both the OS and your apps breathing room for their Virtual RAM, Caching, and scratch Space.
Depending on what your workflow you might use the drive for your current project. Then using your SATA drive as the data drive for your completed work.
Many Pro's use external drives for their active work (over Thunderbolt-3 in your case).
***Becareful!*** USB-C connections doesn't tell you if you are connecting at TB3 (40Gb/s) or just over USB protocol which is a slower connection only giving you 10Gb's! [link|https://www.bhphotovideo.com/explora/computers/tips-and-solutions/thunderbolt-3-usb-31-usb-type-c-making-sense-connections?|Thunderbolt 3, USB 3.1, USB Type-C: Making Sense of Connections]
What is on the other side can also matter, again what your workflow is makes a difference! I work with very large images so my needs are better served by a RAID drive set, a video or music creator will likewise benefit from a RAID.
But! A writer or artist won't need that level of performance. On the other-hand someone doing animations or heavily layered object work would like architects!
That only leaves gamers, they have little need for RAID but using the internal PCIe/NVMe drive makes sense.
First a Fusion Drive is nothing more than a small SSD cache drive which holds the more requested data from the larger HDD. If you where to remove the blade SSD your system would still run! Just using the HDD alone.
***So now lets talk about cloning... We don't clone anymore!*** What worked in older OS9 and early OS-X days is not effective with booting drives. If you had a external data only drive which was setup with ***HFS+*** then cloning it to a second external data drive wouldn't be an issue! But Apple has moved on to ***APFS*** and its a radically different file system structure! And boot drives are more than an OS, apps and data! I haven't used cloning in over 12 years now of fixing peoples systems.
***OK, so cloning is out how do I get my stuff moved over to a new drive?*** Apple supplies the needed tools within the OS! Both within the OS installer as well as an external application: ***''Migration Assistant''***.
-
* So this is the needed actions
+
So this is the needed actions:
+
* First run ***''Disk Utility''*** Disk First-Aid function to make sure the drive is in good shape
* Make a full fresh backup of your drive, I would use ***''TimeMachine''*** with a fresh external drive
** Now the wrinkle! Dual boot or BootCamp installs forces a double backup! You need to treat each OS space independently or use a backup app which runs within each space or has the ability to span the spaces. If you where still running macOS Sierra (10,12.x) which is the last version of MacOS using ***HFS+*** then I can say these dual running backup apps work! But since you are running ***APFS*** make sure you talk with the vendor before you assume it will work (even that may not be enough as the support folks are not always clued in)
Now depending on what your version of macOS is you may have the ability to break the Fusion Drive set if that is all you want to do. Frankly, I've stopped doing that as often I'm replacing both drives so it doesn't matter. Apple has changed things a few times so you need to be careful you use the correct method otherwise you may not break the linkage thinking you had.
Now its time to open the system and replace your drive/s follow these guides:
* [guide|137596]
* [guide|137599]
***BootCamp or Parallels?*** There is no easy answer here as it has a lot to do on what your workflow is and what your aims are. If you have the need to move data between the two environments then BootCamp is the better for many. But as we discovered backing up is a pain! Many folks use an external drive which they either boot up with under Windows or use a VM. I recommend that approach as one of the issues we have discovered is Windows is not as safe from malware as macOS. Apple has Gatekeeper within the systems firmware which protects both the core firmware as well the boot drive from the nasties. Sadly some malware will get around this if they are running on the system as well as the protection is only active within macOS. Having Windows running on its own drive helps.
And of course! Make sure you have and maintain a good antivirus and malware app. I personally run two just within may Mac's and my major work system (I'm a photographer) is physically gapped from the internet.
-
-
***Getting the most out of your system***, an internal PCIe/NVMe blade SSD is by far the best drive to run your OS from, as well as your major apps. Leaving a good portion of the drive empty! That gives both the OS and your apps breathing room for their Virtual RAM, Caching, and scratch Space.
Depending on what your workflow you might use the drive for your current project. Then using your SATA drive as the data drive for your completed work.
Many Pro's use external drives for their active work (over Thunderbolt-3 in your case).
-
***Becareful!*** USB-C connections doesn't tell you if you are connecting at TB3 (40Gb/s) or just over USB protocol which is a slower connection only giving you 10Gb's! [https://www.bhphotovideo.com/explora/computers/tips-and-solutions/thunderbolt-3-usb-31-usb-type-c-making-sense-connections?|Thunderbolt 3, USB 3.1, USB Type-C: Making Sense of Connections]
+
***Becareful!*** USB-C connections doesn't tell you if you are connecting at TB3 (40Gb/s) or just over USB protocol which is a slower connection only giving you 10Gb's! [link|https://www.bhphotovideo.com/explora/computers/tips-and-solutions/thunderbolt-3-usb-31-usb-type-c-making-sense-connections?|Thunderbolt 3, USB 3.1, USB Type-C: Making Sense of Connections]
What is on the other side can also matter, again what your workflow is makes a difference! I work with very large images so my needs are better served by a RAID drive set, a video or music creator will likewise benefit from a RAID.
But! A writer or artist won't need that level of performance. On the other-hand someone doing animations or heavily layered object work would like architects!
That only leaves gamers, they have little need for RAID but using the internal PCIe/NVMe drive makes sense.
First a Fusion Drive is nothing more than a small SSD cache drive which holds the more requested data from the larger HDD. If you where to remove the blade SSD your system would still run! Just using the HDD alone.
***So now lets talk about cloning... We don't clone anymore!*** What worked in older OS9 and early OS-X days is not effective with booting drives. If you had a external data only drive which was setup with ***HFS+*** then cloning it to a second external data drive wouldn't be an issue! But Apple has moved on to ***APFS*** and its a radically different file system structure! And boot drives are more than an OS, apps and data! I haven't used cloning in over 12 years now of fixing peoples systems.
***OK, so cloning is out how do I get my stuff moved over to a new drive?*** Apple supplies the needed tools within the OS! Both within the OS installer as well as an external application: ***''Migration Assistant''***.
* So this is the needed actions
* First run ***''Disk Utility''*** Disk First-Aid function to make sure the drive is in good shape
* Make a full fresh backup of your drive, I would use ***''TimeMachine''*** with a fresh external drive
** Now the wrinkle! Dual boot or BootCamp installs forces a double backup! You need to treat each OS space independently or use a backup app which runs within each space or has the ability to span the spaces. If you where still running macOS Sierra (10,12.x) which is the last version of MacOS using ***HFS+*** then I can say these dual running backup apps work! But since you are running ***APFS*** make sure you talk with the vendor before you assume it will work (even that may not be enough as the support folks are not always clued in)
-
Now depending on what your version of macOS is you may have the ability to break the Fusion Drive set if that is all you want to do. Frankly, I've stopped doing that as often I'm replacing both drives so it doesn't matter. Apple has changed things a few times so you need to be careful you use the correct method otherwise you may not break the linkage thinking you had.
Now its time to open the system and replace your drive/s follow these guides:
* [guide|137596]
* [guide|137599]
-
***BootCamp or Parallels?*** There is no easy answer here as it has a lot to do on what your workflow is and what your aims are. If you have the need to move data between the two environments then BootCamp is the better for many. But as we discovered backing up is a pain! Many folks use an external drive which they either boot up with under Windows or use a VM. I recommend that approach as one of the issues we have discovered is Windows is not as safe from malware as macOS. Apple has Gatekeeper within the systems firmware which protects both the core firmware as well the boot drive from the nasties. Sadly some malware will get around this if they are running on the system as well as the protection is only active within macOS. Having Windows running on its own drive helps.
And of course! Make sure you have and maintain a good antivirus and malware app. I personally run two just within may Mac's and my major work system (I'm a photographer) is physically gapped from the internet.
+
+
+
+
***Getting the most out of your system***, an internal PCIe/NVMe blade SSD is by far the best drive to run your OS from, as well as your major apps. Leaving a good portion of the drive empty! That gives both the OS and your apps breathing room for their Virtual RAM, Caching, and scratch Space.
+
+
Depending on what your workflow you might use the drive for your current project. Then using your SATA drive as the data drive for your completed work.
+
+
Many Pro's use external drives for their active work (over Thunderbolt-3 in your case).
+
+
***Becareful!*** USB-C connections doesn't tell you if you are connecting at TB3 (40Gb/s) or just over USB protocol which is a slower connection only giving you 10Gb's! [https://www.bhphotovideo.com/explora/computers/tips-and-solutions/thunderbolt-3-usb-31-usb-type-c-making-sense-connections?|Thunderbolt 3, USB 3.1, USB Type-C: Making Sense of Connections]
+
+
What is on the other side can also matter, again what your workflow is makes a difference! I work with very large images so my needs are better served by a RAID drive set, a video or music creator will likewise benefit from a RAID.
+
+
But! A writer or artist won't need that level of performance. On the other-hand someone doing animations or heavily layered object work would like architects!
+
+
That only leaves gamers, they have little need for RAID but using the internal PCIe/NVMe drive makes sense.
First a Fusion Drive is nothing more than a small SSD cache drive which holds the more requested data from the larger HDD. If you where to remove the blade SSD your system would still run! Just using the HDD alone.
***So now lets talk about cloning... We don't clone anymore!*** What worked in older OS9 and early OS-X days is not effective with booting drives. If you had a external data only drive which was setup with ***HFS+*** then cloning it to a second external data drive wouldn't be an issue! But Apple has moved on to ***APFS*** and its a radically different file system structure! And boot drives are more than an OS, apps and data! I haven't used cloning in over 12 years now of fixing peoples systems.
***OK, so cloning is out how do I get my stuff moved over to a new drive?*** Apple supplies the needed tools within the OS! Both within the OS installer as well as an external application: ***''Migration Assistant''***.
* So this is the needed actions
* First run ***''Disk Utility''*** Disk First-Aid function to make sure the drive is in good shape
* Make a full fresh backup of your drive, I would use ***''TimeMachine''*** with a fresh external drive
** Now the wrinkle! Dual boot or BootCamp installs forces a double backup! You need to treat each OS space independently or use a backup app which runs within each space or has the ability to span the spaces. If you where still running macOS Sierra (10,12.x) which is the last version of MacOS using ***HFS+*** then I can say these dual running backup apps work! But since you are running ***APFS*** make sure you talk with the vendor before you assume it will work (even that may not be enough as the support folks are not always clued in)
Now depending on what your version of macOS is you may have the ability to break the Fusion Drive set if that is all you want to do. Frankly, I've stopped doing that as often I'm replacing both drives so it doesn't matter. Apple has changed things a few times so you need to be careful you use the correct method otherwise you may not break the linkage thinking you had.
Now its time to open the system and replace your drive/s follow these guides:
* [guide|137596]
* [guide|137599]
***BootCamp or Parallels?*** There is no easy answer here as it has a lot to do on what your workflow is and what your aims are. If you have the need to move data between the two environments then BootCamp is the better for many. But as we discovered backing up is a pain! Many folks use an external drive which they either boot up with under Windows or use a VM. I recommend that approach as one of the issues we have discovered is Windows is not as safe from malware as macOS. Apple has Gatekeeper within the systems firmware which protects both the core firmware as well the boot drive from the nasties. Sadly some malware will get around this if they are running on the system as well as the protection is only active within macOS. Having Windows running on its own drive helps.
And of course! Make sure you have and maintain a good antivirus and malware app. I personally run two just within may Mac's and my major work system (I'm a photographer) is physically gapped from the internet.