Dual boot/clone question

[shtik]

Hi everyone,

I have a boot question that I hope you can help me solve in the best possible way.

I am now running PT 2018.12 on OS 10.12.6, MacBook Pro 2017.

The only reason I am stuck there is an ongoing personal project that I haven’t finished yet.

So on one hand, I don’t update the OS because every time I made such a jump in updates, sessions just would not load as they should, with plugins defaulting and samples not playing. On the other hand, this system is so old that I can’t even play videos I Shot on my current iPhone.. not to mention 99% of today’s software that won’t install, or the fact that I still pay for the annual PT upgrades with the thought that “soon the project will be done”.

My question is, is there a way for me to run both 10.12.6 and Ventura on the same machine, switching between them as necessary?

If so, how? By formatting and partitioning the internal HD, or booting from an external drive? If on an external drive, should the old OS be on it or the new one?

I am able to make a clone of my system using CCC 5 (last version that works on this system), but I remember they dismissed the bootable drive option some time ago if I am not mistaken.

What would you do in my case? Do you have any advice?

Will appreciate any help,

Thanks!!!

[Darryl Ramm]

Originally Posted by shtik

Hi everyone,

I have a boot question that I hope you can help me solve in the best possible way.

I am now running PT 2018.12 on OS 10.12.6, MacBook Pro 2017.

The only reason I am stuck there is an ongoing personal project that I haven’t finished yet.

So on one hand, I don’t update the OS because every time I made such a jump in updates, sessions just would not load as they should, with plugins defaulting and samples not playing. On the other hand, this system is so old that I can’t even play videos I Shot on my current iPhone.. not to mention 99% of today’s software that won’t install, or the fact that I still pay for the annual PT upgrades with the thought that “soon the project will be done”.

My question is, is there a way for me to run both 10.12.6 and Ventura on the same machine, switching between them as necessary?

If so, how? By formatting and partitioning the internal HD, or booting from an external drive? If on an external drive, should the old OS be on it or the new one?

I am able to make a clone of my system using CCC 5 (last version that works on this system), but I remember they dismissed the bootable drive option some time ago if I am not mistaken.

Not upgrading is a good idea while working on stuff.

You are confused about boot droves and cloning. You are likely running HPFS+ filesystems, since 10.12.6 had early releases of APFS support and it was not really supported until 10.13. On HFS+ CCC can clone boot drivers and incrementally update them. On APFS CCC can clone the drive and the clone is bootable but can no longer support incremental updates to a boot drive clone and also be bootable. Mike Bombich has explained all this on blogs on his CCC website, some of the best most clear explanation of APFS backups and limitations. You need to go there and read and understand stuff, nothing related to Pro Tools, and anything you see on DUC is likely referencing what Mike writes.

Hopefully you are talking about cloning as a way of backup, not cloning to then do an in-situ upgrade. Be paranoid and do a full clean macOS install and full new install of apps and plugins.

Probably your safest bet is to getting a decent external SSD, and doing an install of Ventura on that drive (download the installer from the App Store and run it from your Applications folder on your current macOS install and when asked where to install to choose that external drive, the installer should change the drive to APFS. Or given this is a ~6-7 year old Intel MacBook Pro maybe it's time to buy a new Apple silicon MacBook Pro.

SSD quality varies greatly, I'd use a Samsung T7 or T9 for decent external USB SSD or if you want high performance/more expansion a Samsung M.2 drives in a Sonnet Thunderbolt expansion chassis. And of before doing anything you are going to check your bloody SSD firmware is up to date. https://duc.avid.com/showthread.php?t=425632

And you are going to back up everything on the current boot drive in case you mess up doing stuff here, and have multiple backups that, you have checked as best you can. If you have content on other drives leave those drives disconnected while you do stuff (and hopefully you have all that backed up as well). And after you are running on Ventura probably best to avoid putting content on APFS drives since it's s potential hassle with old 10.12.6.

[shtik]

Thank you so much for the elaborate response, Darryl!

Of course the best thing to do would have been buying a new machine.. but that’s financially impossible right now.

I do have some learning to do on this APFS thing.. I know my system uses the old format, so haven’t had the need to research on that before..

As for backups, all of my sessions are of course backed up to 2 other drives other than my working SSD, and the system is backed up on an older Time Machine backup that definitely works, since I dragged it from another system to this one, and except from pointing PT back to where the samples are, it worked perfectly. I will also do a current Time Machine backup to stay safe.

As you said, I do intend to do a full fresh install of everything from scratch on the new external system drive. It would probably be a little hassle to always have the external drive connected to boot from it, but it is a workaround I would probably have to live with until I finish the project or buy a new machine..

Another last question if I may, considering I tell the OS to boot from the external, in case it is not connected, will it automatically boot from the internal, or I must manually set it back while operating on the external?

Thanks again!

[Wireline]

Holding down the option key while powering up should give you the option of which drive your Mac will operate with.

[Bob Olhsson]

I've always used multiple system drives because it's an additional level of backup.

[shtik]

Thanks everyone for your help!

Just received my new Samsung T7 today, hope it all goes well for me:)