This is bad. - Just recently I broke my system badly. So I decided to erase my system and re-setup from time machine. After several unsuccessful attemts I realized that my Time Machine backup (1.45 tb) exceeded my ssd capacity (1 tb). I did research, and learned not to prune my Time Machine backups. As that may corrupt it. So after several days and failed attempts to restore from time machine and after some research and finding out that indeed it was still possible to boot from external ssd, I decided to buy a 2 TB ssd, restore to that ssd, boot from it, clean up excessive data, and migrate from that ssd to my Macbook. It took me three days to solve it. As each failed attempt and investigation took hours to complete.
In the meantime I called Apple support to get help. I said right away that I am an IT professional who worked as sys admin in the past and that I would like to talk to experts. And they forwarded me to „experts“. The first said: „Forget about full restore, won’t work. Create a fresh install and manually (!) copy individual files from time machine to your mac.“ Second person told me to buy a new Mac with 2 tb ssd and restore to that. I asked her if it was possible to restore to an external ssd via Carbon Copy Cloner? As I did in the past half a dozen times. She told me she definitely does not recommend that path as she cannot recommend third party apps (?!?).
I did not try that option immediately as I heared a few years ago that latest MacOSes do not support booting from external ssds. And so I didn’t think of this option. But some research and I found out that indeed it is still possible, but you have to go some extra steps.
So if this wouldn’t have been possible I would have had spent two weeks to restore my machine. Or bought another machine with 2 tb just to restore from backup.
PS: I spent almost 5k Euros for this maxed MacBook Pro with 64 gb. Plus Apple Care. I didn’t want to buy another Mac just to restore from backups.
PPS: All of this was shortly before a very important presentation. So I was stuck with my work laptop (windows machine), and I am 90% less productive with it as it lacks my tools. Yeah, shouldn’t have screwed my main machine just before a super important milestone. Lessons learned.
In the meantime I called Apple support to get help. I said right away that I am an IT professional who worked as sys admin in the past and that I would like to talk to experts. And they forwarded me to „experts“. The first said: „Forget about full restore, won’t work. Create a fresh install and manually (!) copy individual files from time machine to your mac.“ Second person told me to buy a new Mac with 2 tb ssd and restore to that. I asked her if it was possible to restore to an external ssd via Carbon Copy Cloner? As I did in the past half a dozen times. She told me she definitely does not recommend that path as she cannot recommend third party apps (?!?).
I did not try that option immediately as I heared a few years ago that latest MacOSes do not support booting from external ssds. And so I didn’t think of this option. But some research and I found out that indeed it is still possible, but you have to go some extra steps.
So if this wouldn’t have been possible I would have had spent two weeks to restore my machine. Or bought another machine with 2 tb just to restore from backup.
PS: I spent almost 5k Euros for this maxed MacBook Pro with 64 gb. Plus Apple Care. I didn’t want to buy another Mac just to restore from backups.
PPS: All of this was shortly before a very important presentation. So I was stuck with my work laptop (windows machine), and I am 90% less productive with it as it lacks my tools. Yeah, shouldn’t have screwed my main machine just before a super important milestone. Lessons learned.