Looking at what’s involved in updating Big Sur’s new Sealed System Volume shows what’s necessary for successful cloning.
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What happens when you copy a large file to the same volume, or duplicate it, on the same APFS volume? Here are the answers.
What to do, when you can, before taking or sending your Mac in for service or repair. What about FileVault? And Activation Lock?
An ingenious idea to save storage space: leave out empty areas in large files – make them sparse. Do they exist in APFS as claimed?
Why measuring free and used disk space is not so simple in APFS, and which estimates you should trust.
Adding volumes in APFS is quick and simple. But why would you ever want to add a container to a disk? An exploration of their differences, and when containers are useful.
It’s worth refreshing all your Finder Aliases before copying or cloning a volume to update their link info. Here’s a free tool to do that and more: Alifix.
I’m sure this used to be much easier in HFS+, but here’s a detailed set of instructions for making a bootable clone in High Sierra or Mojave, for an APFS disk.
Don’t just throw it in a box and send it off: what happens if its internal storage is replaced or wiped? What about protecting sensitive files? Does a T2 chip make this difficult?
What if you can’t or don’t want to use Migration Assistant to move your files from your old to a new Mac? Here it can get more complicated. Tips and solutions to help.
