Running dead iMac from external SSD?

After watching a video on how to install an SSD in my early 2008 iMac, I bought an external USB enclosure and opted to simply boot off it, using my iMac's internal drive as a backup. This has worked great for more than a year. But last week, after 5 years of yeoman service, the internal drive died. The iMac still boots up fine off the external SSD. I would just like to know if there's any reason I shouldn't continue to use the iMac in this fashion. Any comments or advice appreciated.

Just tried to boot the newly cloned external SSD. Pressed the option key on startup to bring up the startup disk icons. Just got a gray screen. Did a hard shutdown, disconnected the two SSD's. Waited. Reconnected everything. Tried again. This time one SSD icon of the two came up but nothing happened when I clicked on it. Shut down again. Zapped the PRAM. Booted again. This time I got both SSD icons. Yay. But the cursor wouldn't move nor would the arrow keys do anything. Boo. This time I disconnected the SSD's and pulled the power cord from the back of the iMac. Waited a few minutes then reconnected. Booted again. Again got the single icon and the frozen cursor. I had the feeling that the dead (or almost dead) internal hard drive was somehow getting in the way of the startup process. I disconnected one of the SSD's and the remaining one booted fine. I re-connected the second one. It mounted. I opened up the Startup Disk Pref Pane. Only one of the SSD's showed up so I selected the one there. I re-booted & voila. All is sweetness and light. I think I'm going to have to open up the box and disconnect the comatose HD so I don't have to do this dance anymore.

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Yosemite won't Boot from External SSD with Firewire Connection

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Panic (cpu 0 caller 0xffffff800ec59301) - BOOT from External SSD Samsung

Since few days I'm experimenting the boot of my iMac 27 i7 from external 500GB Samsung SSD series 840.
First test with SSD installed on the 2,5" Seagate GoFlex Thunderbolt without external power suffered by some frezing probably due to low current from TB.
Then I put the SSD in a 3,5" eSata enclosure with its own power supply and connect it to TB trough Sonnet Express Card Pro adapter and Sonnet eSata card.
Happy with the speed of boot and of the read and write to the SSD but expereincing some problems.
Few times the iMac does not boot . it remains on the gray screen with the rotating weel.
Once instead of the Apple in the middle of the gray screen I had in Gray something like the noparking signe (circle with a diagonal diameter line) and no boot.
Last time this panic printout, and no boot.
then the iMac could be restart without any problem.
Checked and repaired the SSD: no problem.
I cannot understand what is going on. I connect these with the boot from the external SSD and the complicated chain TB-SonnetAdapter-Card-eSata..
Or there is something more ?
Am I running any risk ?
I still have all my OS system and data on my internal HDD (which I keep every day in sync with the external SSD): this toghetehr with backups and TM should limit my risk.

Thanks Topher Kessler.
It was the enclosure (a Maxxtro 3,5" which negotiated only at 1,5 Gigabit).
I used for some time a Wiebetech 2,5" with 2 FW800 and the eSata (which negotiated 3 Gigabit) and now since yesterday the SSD works in a Value series 2.5" PATA/SATA HDD to eSATA/USB2.0 (from Great Britain eBay).
With both the 2.5" enclosures the system is stable.
The strange about the Value series is that the specs are for SATA II and transfer rates to 3 Gigabits while my system reports 6 Gigabit.

Boot from external SSD cause freeze

I bought a Samsung 830 SSD ( 256 GB model MZ-7PC256D )
I planned to connect it to my 27" 3.5 GHz Intel i7 iMac (mid 2011) via thunderbolt with the Seagate GoFlex adapter and use it as primary boot drive.
I installed Lion (I'm running OS X 10.7.5) on the new external drive using the OS X Recovery.
Everything runs fine and very fast except that system randomly freeze.
I can't open/close apps and the spinning beachball appears. I can't do anything other than power-off holding down the power button.
I disabled the "disk sleep" option, disk seems ok (I checked the status and said verified) but system keeps freezing.
It appears that after the first freeze, soon occur a second one.
Also, I noticed strange(?) sound (something like tock) from the adapter/SSD during the normal use.
I searched for the word error in the Console at the corresponding freeze time and this strings came out:
17/12/12 18:04:06,000 kernel: SMC::smcInitHelper ERROR: MMIO regMap == NULL - fall back to old SMC mode
17/12/12 18:04:09,043 WindowServer: kCGErrorFailure: Set a breakpoint @ CGErrorBreakpoint() to catch errors as they are logged.
17/12/12 18:04:09,888 Finder: kCGErrorIllegalArgument: _CGSFindSharedWindow: WID 31
17/12/12 18:04:09,888 Finder: kCGErrorFailure: Set a breakpoint @ CGErrorBreakpoint() to catch errors as they are logged.
17/12/12 18:04:09,888 Finder: kCGErrorIllegalArgument: CGSRemoveSurface: Invalid window 0x1f
17/12/12 18:04:17,891 talagent: CGSConnectionRelinquishWindowRights(cid, newWindowNumber, reservedRights): CGError 1001 on line 619
17/12/12 18:04:17,891 talagent: CGSReleaseWindow(cid, wid): CGError 1001 on line 759
[Here the complete error log]
Any suggest?

I'm not certain this is the culprit, but the overall consensus that I've read online points to the fact that most (or all?) available external Thunderbolt drive enclosures that are *bus-powered only* (so no independent power brick with the enclosure) have difficulty providing enough power to SSD's that exceed ~240GB. And without enough power the system freezes or causes other errors.
Here's at least one thorough examination that came to this conclusion:
http://wolfgangtechnology.blogspot.com/2012/06/mac-with-seagate-thunderbolt-adap ter.html
The solution, from what I've read at least, is to find a Thunderbolt adapter with an independent power source or use a smaller SSD (under 240GB it seems) that is capable of running on bus-power only.
I'm looking into doing the same as you (using external SSD as primary boot drive) but there aren't that many relatively-affordable enclosures to choose from at this point (off the top of my head just the Seagate GoFlex, Buffalo Ministation, and Lacie offerings come to mind) and there's still an outstanding question as to whether the available enclosures support the SATA III spec to really get the most out of the fastest SSD's available today.
Of note, I believe this version of Seagate's adapter (the "Desktop" version) does come with its own power brick and could solve your problem, at least according to the article I linked above.
Hope this helps, good luck!

Booting from external SSD

My 2010 iMac is getting a little pokey. Some of it is bloat, but I suspect that I might be able to speed it up by adding an external SSD drive and moving the OS (10.9.2) onto it.
I'm pretty clear on how to install it on the SSD, but I have two questions:
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Before you go to all the work of moving to an external SSD, you should know that USB 2.0 will be appallingly slow to boot and work from. You'd get some benefit by using the FireWire connection instead, but I doubt it'll be better than running from the internal.

Hard drive dead/Boot from external hard drive?

My hard drive failed and I need a new one. For the time being, I'd prefer not to open up my iMac and replace the internal hard drive. I have an external USB hard drive and I cannot install OSX onto this drive (strangely, it takes the first disc but not the second).
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If not, what course of action would you recommend?

It is very easy to boot an iMac from an external drive, but the drive should be a Firewire drive. Get one, then get SuperDuper!, which will enable you to clone your data and system to it. You can then choose the external firewire as your boot drive and operate without any problems.
Apparently, there are ways to boot from a USB drive, but they are complicated and a firewire drive is very straightforward and fast.
Let us know how you make out,

Cannot boot from external SSD ...

Hello,
I have just made a fresh install of Mavericks on a brand new Samsung 840 EVO SSD (I initially erased the drive and formatted it to Mac OS Extended Journaled, then created a USB installation drive and performed the installation on the SSD …). It all went well, the computer restarted during this 30 min or so process … However, the problem is when I try to boot in the Samsung SSD at startup having the ALT key pressed, I can only see the 10.8.5 and its recovery partition … Any ideas as to why it doesn't show up the SSD which is connected via USB 3.0 to my laptop ?
Also, even if I go in Mountaion Lion at the Start-up disk option and select the Samsung SSD with 10.9 it still boots into ML … Has anyone encountered this before ?
Thank you.
*non-Retina Macbook Pro 15 inch, mid-2012

Hi Ralph,
thanks a lot for the helpful information! But the problem still persists, and I don't know what's wrong about the installation. I again checked the case and device are fully compatible with Windows 8 on USB 3 and the current boot camp drivers are installed - so everything should work perfectly fine as Windows 8 does natively support booting from external USB-3-devices.
I personally still assume it's rather a driver related problem as the external SSD doesn't even show up whilst booting into the boot menu with "Alt" pressed - I can only choose to boot from the external SSD within the "start volume" menu in OSX (which then doesn't work out when rebooting, unfortunately). I mean, if there was a chance to boot from the external SSD with the configuration I got right now, but OSX/the iMac just "doesn't know" it shall boot from the external partition and therefore rather chooses the internal boot camp partition, the SSD would at least show up in the boot menu when pressing "Alt" on start-up, or do I go completely wrong? I even tried to rename the internal bootcamp partition (which did not work out) or disable it in order to prevent OSX/the iMac to boot from the internal bootcamp partition, but it didn't help: After rebooting it again chose the internal boot camp partition to start from.
Might the deletion of the internal partition be worth a try? Meaning is there a realistic chance that the issue might be caused by that? I would give it a try although I really don't wanna loose the internal boot camp partition for no good reason (btw: would it be possible to clone an image back from the external SSD to the internal HDD then?). Or do you maybe have any other idea what driver could miss resp. could be wrong about the installation so the boot process from the external SSD fails...?
Again MANY MANY THANKS in advance for your further assistance, everybody!!

How to run data merge from external hard drive?

I attempting to merge a large document (~4,000 records) in CS3. The document that I'm merging the data into is also large (an 8 page newsletter). I have exported the pages of the document as a PDF and the imported them again (therefore minimizing the data/links/etc.) but the amount of memory it was consuming was still crashing the program when I ran it on my computer. I bought a TB external hard drive and would like to run the merge from there so that it is using that memory/RAM instead of my computer's. I moved the indesign file, all the pdf links, and the .csv file that is the data source to the external hard drive. That didn't solve the problem. Is the merge now running from the external hard drive and still not working or is there something further I need to be doing to get InDesign using the external hard drive memory instead of my computer's memory? Any advice would be wonderful, thanks!

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Starting up iMac from External Hard Drive

I posted this yesterday in "using your iMAc section" as a reply to "HD not Mounted", but no answers, So I thought I'd try here.
First, My iMac HD is bad,(as per apple tech at the store) I think(Hope) I was able to recover all files and transfer them over(w/ Disk WArrior) to my new LaCie d2 Quadra HD. As I was already having issues w/ my iMac HD, When I first plugged in the Lacie I installed the OS System onto the Lacie HD
in My previous post in the other section I said after install, it resatarted up OK from External HD before I ran Disk Warrior. Well Honestly Now I can't remember if it did or didn't, I have had so many attemps at restarting and trying to recover stuff over the past few weeks every failure and success are just blurring together.
Anyway, Now I would like to restart from my External HD to verify that all files transfer over OK, before having my iMAc HD replaced.
I have tried from the start up disk and get the message (on a black screen""Unable to find driver for this platform" and "Back Trace Terminal-invalid frame pointer.
with the OS system disk installer it recognizes the LaCie Ext/HD, But I didn't want to go thru the Archive and Recover process again. I also tried to start up in Firewire mode (thought it would go to the item that is hooked up) but all I got was the firewire symble moving around like a screen saver
Any Help would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks

I tried the Start/Option key combo, but it still wouldn't work. Went back to Apple store, they couldn't get it to start either and said that something in the Mac HD wasn't allowing the external to open. but he did hook it up to another mac and the files were there. So now they are replacing the HD and will make sure that external HD will boot up afterwards.
PHEW!!! Thank God for the Apple Care!!!
Thanks Very Much for the help

What's the best way to run Logic Pro from external hard drive.

What's the best way to run logic from external hard drive

Hi
Organism wrote:
Logic is designed to run from your Applications folder. I suspect if Logic was moved to an external drive, it might not be able to locate its assets, like loops and libraries.
As long the necessary files are in the correct places on the boot disc, you can run the Logic application itself fom wherever you like. It would not be recommended however, and there would be very little benefit (if any) in doing so.
CCT

Running Snow Leopard from External Hard Drive

I have some teacher software that lion won't run. It was suggested to me to run snow leopard from an external hard drive. I have an external WD hardrive for mac. Can someone share with me on how to do it?
Thanks!

Have a look here
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1948

Does anyone know if running Photoshop thru a external SSD (using firewire) as a scratch disk, on a imac early 2008- make photoshop any faster doing tasks?

Has anyone tried this and if so, was there a noticable difference in photoshop doing its various tasks? Again, its a imac early 2008, and I looking to use a firewire to attach a Solid State Drive to use as the scratch disk. I am maxed out a 6gb ram.
Thanks

CanadianBear
KiltedTim's right of course. You seem to have adequate RAM.
I would ask you if this sluggishness is NEW? If so, what has changed that you can identify? Updates or upgrades? New software etc?
What kind of tasks? Any operation on a big image is processor heavy, but you have the RAM so scratch disk is the right direction. What is your 'History' preference in PShop? Keep that as small as you can afford to. Save often. Keep as few images open as possible - each image has its own History. Save often.
For scratch info on an image, choose that from the 'triangle' pop menu at the bottom of the document window. That seems a good way to tell if scratch disks are even at fault.
Happy Shopping
CCC

Running operating system from external hard drive

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It will be a bit slower but it should work just like booting from the internal disk.
Regards
Captfred

Install on Imac from external DVD

Hi
I have a 2.16GHz intel core Duo Imac running 10.6.5 and I seem to be having niggly problems with it ie plug-ins quit in Safari etc. I have done all the normal things to put these right but they have not worked. Someone on the forum suggested that I reinstall Snow Leopard from the original disk so I thought I would give it a try, but have the following problems.
1. I am not quite sure how to do this without losing all my programmes etc. ie Quark, CS4 Creative Suite and many others.
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3. I have a much newer Imac on my network using 10.5. Is there any way I can use this to reinstall 10.6 on the older Imac if necessary?
4. Would it make any difference if I connected the external drive using USB?
Any help would be appreciated.
Chris

1. I am not quite sure how to do this without losing all my programmes etc. ie Quark, CS4 Creative Suite and many others.
Backup your data*:
http://www.macmaps.com/backup.html
3. I have a much newer Imac on my network using 10.5. Is there any way I can use this to reinstall 10.6 on the older Imac if necessary?
They have to be the same vintage to work over the network or otherwise.
2. Because my Imac DVD drive will not eject DVDs I am using an external one Freecom DVD RW recorder LS pro external double layer DVD+/-RW/USB 2.0/Firewire/Lightscribe. I have it connected via Firewire. It will open the snow leopard disk but when I go to utilities restart I cannot restart from it. Perhaps I am being impatient but did not start after five minutes just blank screen and DVD revving occasionally. The 10.5 disk will boot the machine fine but not the 10.6.
Sounds like it might need a new clock battery or optical drive.
It should also have at least 1 GB of RAM.
How much free disk space does it have, and how big a hard drive does it have?
4. Would it make any difference if I connected the external drive using USB?
Usually Firewire boots faster. I think the problem is the clock battery is getting old. Boot times may have problems once the machine reaches 4 years old, as then the clock battery gets weak and can't tell it how to boot things. This may also explain the optical drive failure.

Running Final Cut7 from external hard drive with 15" Retina having FCX on it's drive...

Hi All,
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My idea is to install FC 7 on an external hard drive and run it from there. The main goal is for the next year or so, to be able to bridge the world between former clients who have years worth of clips and FC sequences/timelines they just update each year, to new clients today.
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The applications are just going to run faster on your 256GB internal 'drive' than if installed on an external - if, indeed, they COULD be installed on an external (there are a lot of files inserted into you Libraries that the applications need to run).
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256GB should be more than enough - even though I have a 512GB SSD I really am only (now, anyway) using about 140GB on it and I'm running the entire Adobe CS6 suite and quite a number of other drive-heavy apps. So 256GB should be a worry.
As I said, I have all of my apps installed on my internal drive and use two Thunderbolt external drives as 'working' drives - you should be able to do the same with whatever connections you have to your external drives (just will be a little slower than Thunderbolt). Keep your apps on your internal - 256GB is really enough.
Good luck,
Clinton

Running dead iMac from external SSD?

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