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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

#241

Post by wtallis »

CelestialTeapot wrote: post #201
bitwize wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except soldering everything on can give you HUGE performance boosts. Like, laptops come with soldered-on RAM that you can't get in a DIMM configuration because the soldered on stuff is so fast it needs a fast path to the CPU, which DIMM slots can't provide. And now with Apple building all system RAM directly into the chip die, it's just a whole new ballgame. So you can either go modular and have a slow PC, or you can…

Sorry, what? Citation please. The speed lost moving a DIMM from a 3cm path-to-CPU to a removable DIMM slot 6cm away is infinitesimal. You would not notice it.

For laptops, soldered vs socketed DRAM is mostly about power, not performance. But it is true that soldering DRAM makes it possible to reach higher bus speeds than are practical to achieve through a DIMM slot; this is why GPUs don't have upgradable RAM.

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

#242

Post by Heliosmaster »

nottorp wrote: post #235
donkeyd wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> soldered-to-the-motherboard, everything-utterly-encrypted approach is that it's almost impossible to do data recovery Well, that's kind of the point. > You just have to be damn sure that you back it up correctly. Exactly. And that's as easy as plugging in an external hard drive occasionally, or storing critical files in the cloud.

> > soldered-to-the-motherboard, everything-utterly-encrypted approach is that it's almost impossible to do data recovery > Well, that's kind of the point. Great; how do we opt out?

with different machines? The framework laptop doesn't work this way, afaik

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

#243

Post by AdrianB1 »

1123581321 wrote: post #96
ChuckNorris89 wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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…

I think you are using old information. Any modern SSD should be good for a few hundred to several hundred TB and may reach a PB. It would be very hard to use a personal computer that heavily. Most people would take 20 years or more.

I finished the life of a SSD in a single year of regular use; it was great to find it should not happen, but it did.

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

#244

Post by donkeyd »

thefz wrote: post #221
donkeyd wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> soldered-to-the-motherboard, everything-utterly-encrypted approach is that it's almost impossible to do data recovery Well, that's kind of the point. > You just have to be damn sure that you back it up correctly. Exactly. And that's as easy as plugging in an external hard drive occasionally, or storing critical files in the cloud.

> or storing critical files in the cloud. No. I refuse to let my vacation photos, hard drive images or hell, even my wallpaper collection to leave my house. No. I refuse. My data is my data.

> or

There was another simple option. You're free to use that one.

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

#245

Post by GhettoComputers »

amatecha wrote: post #224
GhettoComputers wrote: post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I highly suggest you return them since the upkeep is very expensive. The repairs for screens is ridiculous, the batteries are horrible (the x220 has more longevity since the bios is DRM free), the cards are on a whitelist (only approved ones allowed). It is so bad I have some that are in disrepair until I can find parts for them again. The x240 to x270 will have modern parts that are cheap, the batteries internal and…

Ah yeah, luckily the X230T I will mostly only use plugged in. I do agree, the energy efficiency (and battery cost) is one criticism of mine. That said, I'm not too worried about WLAN allowlist since I can supposedly remove that with 1vyrain (same with battery allowlist), if I even cared about it. Same with displays, the TN in the X230 is pretty sub-par but totally fine for me. Yeah, for now stuff is pretty easily ava…

With the cheaper batteries it’s still only an ok usage if you already have it. Official batteries will cost the same as the unofficial ones for these older devices and the screens remain expensive, and there aren’t any good IPS ones. If you don’t care about it being used as a laptop you can replace them with screens that are larger in size, but it won’t close properly anymore. I personally never looked back since the x250 was better in every way, the default screen is IPS.

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

#246

Post by AdrianB1 »

Dylan16807 wrote: post #115
ChuckNorris89 wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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…

How many SSDs have you worn out? I've never managed it.

One, small capacity X limited cycles = short life span.

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

#247

Post by nottorp »

Heliosmaster wrote: post #242
nottorp wrote: post #235

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> > soldered-to-the-motherboard, everything-utterly-encrypted approach is that it's almost impossible to do data recovery > Well, that's kind of the point. Great; how do we opt out?

with different machines? The framework laptop doesn't work this way, afaik

Too bad i switched to Mac OS from Linux. The OS matters to me and OS X is still the least annoying.

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

#248

Post by StillBored »

chaoskanzlerin wrote: post #236
thefz wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> or storing critical files in the cloud. No. I refuse to let my vacation photos, hard drive images or hell, even my wallpaper collection to leave my house. No. I refuse. My data is my data.

Nothing stopping you from putting NextCloud on a Raspberry Pi

I don't know about the mac, but I tried to do this for the wife/kids i-devices, and it was an utter failure. 3rd party backup apps are at a huge disadvantage on ios because apparently they can't run in the background long enough to keep things synced unless they also require _GPS_ service notifications (or at least that is how the nextcloud app works around it). Which in turn eats even more battery to work around ios's inability to flag apps as trusted system services and provide extra warnings/whatever during install (or app store acceptance might be a better plan).

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

#249

Post by pram »

aneutron wrote: post #187
slownews45 wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does anyone laugh a bit at these types of comments? Using these "stupid" and "unjustifiable" approaches, apple has delivered highly reliable / fast machines to lots of users. They come with applecare if you want, which gets you walk in fix/replace at their stores. Note, they've already don't this on iphones - millions shipped. They are going for as much reliability / speed out of this for the 90%+ of users who are no…

You are arguing without any arguments. 1) I agree that some integration is intimately tied to how well the machines performs. I also referenced this in my comment. What I don't agree to is the SSD being soldered on. It uses the same PCIe lanes it would use if it was swappable ! As for the "stupid" approach, it really doesn't make much sense to tie the capability of the machine FUNCTIONING to a storage that you cannot…

Your assumption is incorrect. The SSD on any Mac with a T2/M1 is not like an NVME SSD you'd pick up from the store. The soldered modules themselves are just NAND storage, the T2/M1 is the actual storage controller. They're literally non-functional otherwise.

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

#250

Post by wtallis »

AdrianB1 wrote: post #243
1123581321 wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you are using old information. Any modern SSD should be good for a few hundred to several hundred TB and may reach a PB. It would be very hard to use a personal computer that heavily. Most people would take 20 years or more.

I finished the life of a SSD in a single year of regular use; it was great to find it should not happen, but it did.

What drive? What was the end of life behavior you observed? Catastrophic failure, or SMART data showing wearout?
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