Hi Sev,

 

I use SuperDuper but I imagine CCC works the same. So the general idea of a 
clone (as opposed to any other backup) is that you could boot from it and carry 
on working if, for example your fusion drive totally failed. This is what I did 
for around 2 years after my iMac drive failed before my recent rebuild – I just 
carried on working with the clone as the boot drive - obviously then I needed a 
clone of the clone as clone backup ;o)

 

So, I presume you have checked to make sure you can boot up OK from the clone. 
If that works OK then you are working from a straight HD not the fusion drive – 
so if that is OK for an external drive it should be fine for a (separated) 
internal drive?

 

You will, of course have one added complication that I didn’t have – I believe 
you are running High Sierra which uses APFS on SSDs but not Fusion drives. So, 
at present, you are not using APFS but, I believe, if you split the fusion 
drive and then install High Sierra onto the SSD as a start-up volume the SSD 
will get changed to the APFS file system. I have not yet moved to High Sierra 
so I have no idea of the implications of this – or even how it works when, say, 
cloning from your SSD to an external drive – there are a number of articles 
about this but I haven’t read any of them ;o)

 

 

Cheers

 

 

Neil

-- 

Neil R. Houghton

Albany, Western Australia

Tel: +61 8 9841 6063

Email: [email protected]

From: <[email protected]> on behalf of Severin 
Crisp <[email protected]>
Reply-To: WAMUG <[email protected]>
Date: Wednesday, 11 April 2018 at 16:56
To: WAMUG <[email protected]>
Subject: Re: Hard drive

 

Many thanks for your full response.  I guess one of my worries how the bits on 
my clone(s) of the fusion drive can be just pushed around like ordinary Finder 
bits, with the obvious restrictions of course.   

I have a bit of study to do before I get started!  

Best wishes

Severin



On 11 Apr 2018, at 16:26, Neil Houghton <[email protected]> wrote:

 

Hi Severin,

 

I just fitted a 250GB SSD and a 3TB hard drive to my late 2009 i7 iMac (along 
with upping the RAM to 24GB).

 

I was considering setting up a fusion drive but, as for yourself, for a variety 
of reasons I decided not to. Primary reason was that a fusion setup would only 
allow 1 extra partition – whereas I have split the 3TB into 3 partitions.

 

The main reason for a fusion drive as opposed to separate seemed to be that 
separate drives require you to manage your own files rather than just having 
the one logical volume with the OS doing the file movement as required. I have 
always preferred to organise my files my way – not always as per Apple’s 
default setup – so this was not a problem for me. Currently my setup is:

·         250GB SSD contains main  OSX (El Capitan) and applications, together 
with a bare Admin user profile

·         1.5TB partition is my main data drive and contains my main user 
profile and various other stuff.

·         1.0TB partition is currently empty but will probably become a 
dedicated media drive (music, video etc)

·         500 GB partition is a bootable SL OSX 10.6.8 clone of my old setup 
(has some legacy software and it means I can stagger my 
clean-out/reorganisation of years of accumulated cruft).

 

I found plenty of online resources when rebuilding my computer and setting this 
up but, as you say, it can be difficult to decide which approach is the best. 
My thoughts:

·         To be sure, to be sure – at least 2 backups of your current system 
before you start – Your clone plus an up to date Time machine backup would seem 
to cover this.

·         Work out just how you intend to manage your data between the drives – 
given you have a bigger SSD but smaller HD than my set-up:

o    I imagine you will not be looking to further partition the HD – just 
ending up with the 500GB SSD and the 1.5TB HD.

o    I presume your OS and applications will be on the SSD.

o    With only a 250GB SSD, for me it made sense to have my main user folder on 
the HD but with a 500GB SSD you may find it better to keep your user folder on 
the SSD and just use the HD for high capacity storage.

·         Obviously you need to proceed in 2 stages:

1.       Split the fusion drive into its separate SSD & HD components.

2.       Set up the drives with your new desired configuration.

 

In terms of splitting up the fusion drive, this article is also referenced by 
several others:

https://www.macworld.com/article/2015664/storage-flash/how-to-split-up-a-fusion-drive.html

In your case, since you have a bootable clone, you can ignore the instructions 
about doing this from recovery mode – just boot-up from the clone and your 
internal drive(s) can be dealt with easily.

Here’s another article that seems to cover it well:

https://www.lifewire.com/split-fusion-drive-apart-2260166

 

If you do decide that you want your user folder on the HD, rather than the SSD, 
this is the OWC video I used for guidance:

https://eshop.macsales.com/installvideos/owc_techknowlogy/keeping_system_files/?_ga=2.27482869.873964507.1523432163-1041492836.1522295138

 

Since I was not just adding an SSD to a computer with the existing system on 
the HD, I initiall just copied my user folder over from the clone but I then 
ran into permissions issues as I had been logged in as admin account when I 
copied over and that seemed to change the permissions so that there were 
problems when looged in to my main account I didn’t have correct access to my 
user folder. I picked this up quickly and went back to square 1 and found a 
sequence which worked for me – then all fine!

 

If you do decide to do this, then if you cloned your existing clone back to the 
1.5TB HD as the very first step, then you would be essentially in exactly the 
same start point as the video and could follow it exactly and (hopefully) avoid 
any permissions issues. Of course if you are going to have your user folder on 
the SSD, with the OS, then none of this is relevant ;o)

 

HTH & good luck!

 

 

I’m still coming to grips with Outlook 2016 which seems to be missing a heap of 
features that I reliedon in Entourage 2004 – the price of progress!

 

 

Cheers

 

 

Neil

-- 

Neil R. Houghton

Albany, Western Australia

Tel: +61 8 9841 6063

Email: [email protected]

From: <[email protected]> on behalf of Severin 
Crisp <[email protected]>
Reply-To: WAMUG <[email protected]>
Date: Wednesday, 11 April 2018 at 14:01
To: WAMUG <[email protected]>
Subject: Hard drive

 

I have an iMac with a 1.5T hard drive made up of a 1T conventional drive and a 
500GB Samsung SSD.  For a variety of reasons I am looking to split this up to a 
500GB SSD system drive and the remainder on the 1T drive.  

I am wondering how to achieve this and need informed advice.   I make a daily 
carbo Copy clone of the 1.5T fusion drive but wonder how to proceed.  

Help please!

Severin Crisp

 

I have read several internet solutions but would appreciate further advice.

____________________________________________________

 

             Assoc Prof R Severin Crisp, FAIP, FIP, CPhys

15 Thomas St, Mount Clarence, Albany, 6330, Western Australia

                  ph (08) 9842 1950 ( Int'l +61 8 9842 1950)

        Mob  0484 624 741    mail to: [email protected]

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____________________________________________________

 

             Assoc Prof R Severin Crisp, FAIP, FIP, CPhys

15 Thomas St, Mount Clarence, Albany, 6330, Western Australia

                  ph (08) 9842 1950 ( Int'l +61 8 9842 1950)

        Mob  0484 624 741    mail to: [email protected]

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