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Apple Silicon Macs can't boot from external drive if internal drive failed

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Re: Apple Silicon Macs can't boot from external drive if internal drive failed

#71

Consider options like Framework laptops that let you actually own your hardware, and repair it.

Looks like all their laptops use Intel processors? Do they let you control and disable Intel's management engine on that CPU? If not then I don't see how one really "owns" the hardware.

Dell allows you to disable it (but it’s not really repairable) system76 and librem I think has it removed (but they’re not worth it for the specs).

Re: Apple Silicon Macs can't boot from external drive if internal drive failed

#72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure your link disproves this article. The first paragraph just says bootable backups are supported (they are by CCC too), and the rest of the page hasn't been changed in years. The SuperDuper blog says: > Note that, as I indicated above, M1 Macs can't readily boot from external drives. There are things you can do, if you have an external Thunderbolt 3 drive (USB-C isn't sufficient), but even that won't work…

The blog entry you're referencing is old. Please follow the link I had provided - https://shirtpocket.com/SuperDuper/SuperDuperDescription.htm... - note the recent version number and its respective description.

Again, bootable backups work fine on Apple Silicon, but not when the internal drive has failed, since booting requires an iBoot volume stored on the internal drive. I believe there's a misunderstanding, and SuperDuper hasn't found any workaround for this.

Re: Apple Silicon Macs can't boot from external drive if internal drive failed

#73
post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you can't buy parts from 3rd parties e.g. you can't source chips or connectors etc. on Mouser, then I can't see how this is much different from Apple. Just because manufacturer sells parts themselves (thus avoiding spending money on good repair service), probably won't save you much money considering you will have to spend your own time and make effort to fix it yourself. Nonetheless, any move into more repair fri…

Framework's hardware is entirely open source ( https://github.com/FrameworkComputer/ExpansionCards ) so you can buy parts from any third-party that wants to produce them.

They have open sourced a development toolkit for making expansion card modules but the motherboard itself is not open source. You can, however get schematics if you are a "repair shop", under NDA, however they define that.

Re: Apple Silicon Macs can't boot from external drive if internal drive failed

#74
post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you can't buy parts from 3rd parties e.g. you can't source chips or connectors etc. on Mouser, then I can't see how this is much different from Apple. Just because manufacturer sells parts themselves (thus avoiding spending money on good repair service), probably won't save you much money considering you will have to spend your own time and make effort to fix it yourself. Nonetheless, any move into more repair fri…

Framework's hardware is entirely open source ( https://github.com/FrameworkComputer/ExpansionCards ) so you can buy parts from any third-party that wants to produce them.

That just reminds me of Alienware’s open modular GPU cards or the open nanoSD cards from Huawei, both of which are open and nobody wants to make or use in their own products. It’s open but there isn’t any incentive for anyone else to make some niche parts for a single laptop brand.

Re: Apple Silicon Macs can't boot from external drive if internal drive failed

#75
post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The SSDs of 2015-2017 macbooks start failing and they are soldered on the board. I have a 12" that I can only boot from external now otherwise the device would be dead. With the M1 models you don't even have the chance to do this. Apple won't even change the failed ssds they will sell you a new logic board for the prize of a new machine. It's infuriating and the only reason I won't buy a machine until they make user…

I suspect they began soldering it because the cable connecting the disk drive had a lot of problems in older MacBooks. Soldering may have been an easy fix for that. I hate the soldering, too. I'm just offering an explanation that may make some sense given the context.

pcie and nvme ssds use ports that are similar to ram slots there is no more cable involved.

Re: Apple Silicon Macs can't boot from external drive if internal drive failed

#76

General grumpiness about this particular design decision aside, it appears that since the T2 Macs, the main SSD was being used to store core system firmware. On T2 I think it's BridgeOS that sends the EFI image to the Intel side to boot it, and it does the firmware verification and loading. This setup has a benefit; namely, it is now impossible to brick the system with a bad BIOS/EFI flash, and you'll never need to u…

>whatever failure damaged the SSD is statistically likely to compromise the reliability of the rest of the board

Sorry, but how? That's just reads like BS.

SSDs have limited lifespans due to the limited write cycles of the NAND chips. So no, what damages NAND does not damage the rest of the board. The more you write and swap to flash, the faster it wears out, taking your Macbook down with it when it dies.

Granted, I expect the controller to keep moving your data around to the cells with the least ammount of wear and isolate the ones that have worn out, reducing your storage space and speed of the drive over time.

Re: Apple Silicon Macs can't boot from external drive if internal drive failed

#77
post #39

General grumpiness about this particular design decision aside, it appears that since the T2 Macs, the main SSD was being used to store core system firmware. On T2 I think it's BridgeOS that sends the EFI image to the Intel side to boot it, and it does the firmware verification and loading. This setup has a benefit; namely, it is now impossible to brick the system with a bad BIOS/EFI flash, and you'll never need to u…

This seems like a failure on a part of M1 systems rather than the T2 chip. I have an intel Macbook Air with the T2 chip for touchid, and I have a bootcamp partition that I boot off of via an external ssd over usb3 no problem.

The article is only saying if the internal drive fails, you can't boot off an external drive, not that you can't boot off an external drive at all.

Re: Apple Silicon Macs can't boot from external drive if internal drive failed

#78
post #48
post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The SSDs of 2015-2017 macbooks start failing and they are soldered on the board. I have a 12" that I can only boot from external now otherwise the device would be dead. With the M1 models you don't even have the chance to do this. Apple won't even change the failed ssds they will sell you a new logic board for the prize of a new machine. It's infuriating and the only reason I won't buy a machine until they make user…

I don't think it will be the price of a new machine, it will be the price of a flat rate repair which is a fixed price for any sort of work past a certain point (as far as the genius bar worker described to me at least). For my 2020 laptop it could explode in a fireball and Apple will repair it for $418 before tax, my flat rate for this laptop.

680 Euros quoted from the apple store in berlin for a 2012 macbook.

Re: Apple Silicon Macs can't boot from external drive if internal drive failed

#79
post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The SSDs of 2015-2017 macbooks start failing and they are soldered on the board. I have a 12" that I can only boot from external now otherwise the device would be dead. With the M1 models you don't even have the chance to do this. Apple won't even change the failed ssds they will sell you a new logic board for the prize of a new machine. It's infuriating and the only reason I won't buy a machine until they make user…

I suspect they began soldering it because the cable connecting the disk drive had a lot of problems in older MacBooks. Soldering may have been an easy fix for that. I hate the soldering, too. I'm just offering an explanation that may make some sense given the context.

What cable? As far as I can recall, everything not directly soldered since about 2013 was ssd mounted to motherboard using either M.2 or a similar proprietary connector. I suspect it was Cook-ish financial engineering and that trademark Apple hubris (that they finally got over to re-add ports in the most recent MBP).

Re: Apple Silicon Macs can't boot from external drive if internal drive failed

#80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I disagree. My thinkpad x230t is still going strong nearly 10 years later (extreme example). With 16GB of ram and an SSD it's still a decently capable machine. If you're the type of person that needs the _fastest_ computer then yeah obviously you're upgrading every year. Or if you work on large codebases, etc. But if you don't care about that, you can easily go 4+ years with your laptop. Yes computers have gotten fas…

This is a tangential question. I adore my Thinkpad x230t but it has a whopping ~1 hour battery life at this point. Do you leave yours permanently plugged in or do you have some sort of modern battery solution for our ancient beast with an amazing keyboard?

I ended up just buying a new battery for my t540p. I was reluctant to because I didn't think it could possibly last much longer with the abuse it's been subjected to, but, it's still going strong a year later.
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