New to Macbook -- First time set-up questions

[Howard]

Hello,

After several decades of dealing with Microsoft Plug and Pray, I am switching to a new Macbook M3 next week.

I have no experience with Apple computers but have used iPhones and iPads for more than 10 years. I have a few questions about connecting external SSDs and hard drives as well as other devices. I would appreciate any help in confirming what I believe I need to do as well as any recommendations that would this easier.

I have two 4TB TB3 SSDs and two 8TB USB-A external hard drives all in Exfat format. My plan is to connect both SSDs, reformat one to AFPS, copy data from second one to first one, reformat the second one to AFPS, and copy data from first one to second one. I then want to do the same with the two USB-A external hard drives by connecting them using USB-C to USB-A adaptors. The past 3 years of data is on all external drives as well as the C drive with data prior to that on the two external hard drives. All 5 drives are backed up to Cloud so any one of them can be restored independent of the others.

Once that is done, I will eject all four drives to prepare to connect them and everything else through a Pluggable TB3 dock.

Here is the sequence I have in mind.

1) Connect the dock.

2) Connect USB-A bus power keyboard to dock

3) Connect one SSD.

4 Install BACK-UPS software from SSD and connect USB-A power monitor cable to dock

4) Install Epson scanner software from SSD and connect USB-A powered scanner to dock

5) Connect powered Startech 7 port hub to dock and connect both powered external hard drives and a bus power external USB-A DVD writer to the hub.

6) Connect second bus powered SSD to Dock.

7) Install printer software from SSD and connect both Canon wireless printers to Macbook.

8) Turn everything off.

9) Connect RJ45 ethernet to dock and router and power all devices up to switch Macbook from wireless to wired connection ( necessary? ) I have been using a wired internet connection because my Dell Precision kept dropping the wireless one. Is this necessary or is Apple wireless more reliable?

Last, will the above sequence work OR do I need to connect every external device directly to the MacBook to install it for the first time even if multiple restarts are needed before connecting everything through the dock?

Any recommendations would be appreciated since I am not in the mood to crash a new laptop because I did something wrong.

Thank you for taking the time to read this and any recommendations in advance.

Howard

 

[graybalanced]

In theory, direct connection to the Mac is the most reliable, but in my experience a well-made dock is usually good enough. I see no problem setting up the peripherals through the dock, but I think recently I have done formatting and first-time setup of SSDs when directly connecting them to the Mac just to be sure. I have no qualms running SSDs daily through a dock, or even through dock and hub, as long as I don’t think the setup is bottlenecking the drives. Since multiple drives through a hub with displays and peripherals on it means everything is trying to share the bandwidth of a single port on the Mac, sometimes it’s better to split the load across ports.

With today’s docks, it should not crash. That would indicate a serious problem with the dock. MacOS crashes a lot less than it used to; I think I am down to rebooting my MacBook Pro every three or four weeks (usually for a software update)

Networking: Same as the PC, really. There aren’t really issues with Mac wifi, many people just use that even if they have a wired Ethernet option. Obviously, if your wifi signal is mediocre (due to range or obstacles), wired will beat it, but if wifi is great and fast enough to deliver the full speed of your incoming cable/fiber Internet, the difference might be hard to notice.

I have a lot of devices on my wifi network and I just think networking the computer is going to be more robust if I give it the network cable that’s sitting there waiting to be used. So when the laptop is plugged into the dock, it switches to the dock’s wired Gigabit Ethernet port. If you don’t know this, the Mac can auto-switch among detected network interfaces as they become available; you can set network interface priority in Network settings. So my Mac prefers wired but if the cable is not there it switches to wifi.

The more your computer (Mac or PC) does things relying on high network bandwidth, the more you want to use that wired Ethernet. One example would be fast backups or transfers with a local NAS. Another would be that you need to run lots of live video streams or host video meetings out of your computer, and you need to maintain top notch pro video and audio quality. Because video streaming pros will tell you that for that activity, use wired whenever possible because it will provide the most consistency and least dropped frames, and they hate wifi.

 

[CAcreeks]

I have two 4TB TB3 SSDs and two 8TB USB-A external hard drives all in exFAT format.

Before a deep dive into your plan, let me ask: are your two 8TB external HDD really in exFAT format? That would be unusual. I'd expect them to be NTFS. That's normal for HDD. NTFS must be converted because, without 3rd party software, NTFS is not writable on MacOS.

You can leave everything exFAT if you want. Downside is that files have neither ownership nor permissions. Some people (e.g. me) believe exFAT is not as reliable as it should be.

Apple's Migration Assistant worked really well for me, twice so far. It can be used when going from Windows to MacOS. Searching the Internet, I do not see any major problems reported with W10 to Mac, only several usage issues.

 

[JPAlbert]

Re your platter-based hard drives:

If you intend to reformat any of them to Mac format, I recommend that you use HFS+ (instead of APFS) for platter-based drives.

The only exception would be if you're going to use a platter-based drive for time machine. I believe it then has to be in APFS.

SSDs can be in APFS, but I've read that using APFS on platter-based drives can lead to excessive fragmentation and "drive thrashing".

On the Mac, in Disk Utility, HFS+ is called "Mac OS extended, journaling enabled, GUID partition format".

Good luck on the Mac.
I suggest you plan on keeping the PC set up for a while, that way if you run into a problem on the Mac side, you can still fall back to the PC to get the job-at-hand done.

 

[Howard]

Hello,

Thank you for the HFS+ recommendation for the hard disk external drives.

The current Dell laptop warranty ends in one month and since that machine does not boot correctly about 90 percent of the time (cannot find C drive by iteself but does when manually pointed at it), it will be kept until the warranty ends.

Howard

 

[Howard]

Hello,

I appreciate your comment about exFat drives. They were all converted to that format in 2018 when I first thought about switching to a MacBook but could not justify the cost of replacing all the software and an older printer that would not run MacOS at the time. That printer was replaced last year.

Howard

 

[Howard]

Hello,

Thank you for taking the time to look at my transition plan and your commendations.

Howard

 

[Nick on the Baltic]

Hello,

After several decades of dealing with Microsoft Plug and Pray, I am switching to a new Macbook M3 next week.

I have no experience with Apple computers but have used iPhones and iPads for more than 10 years. I have a few questions about connecting external SSDs and hard drives as well as other devices. I would appreciate any help in confirming what I believe I need to do as well as any recommendations that would this easier.

I have two 4TB TB3 SSDs and two 8TB USB-A external hard drives all in Exfat format. My plan is to connect both SSDs, reformat one to AFPS, copy data from second one to first one, reformat the second one to AFPS, and copy data from first one to second one. I then want to do the same with the two USB-A external hard drives by connecting them using USB-C to USB-A adaptors. The past 3 years of data is on all external drives as well as the C drive with data prior to that on the two external hard drives. All 5 drives are backed up to Cloud so any one of them can be restored independent of the others.

Once that is done, I will eject all four drives to prepare to connect them and everything else through a Pluggable TB3 dock.

Here is the sequence I have in mind.

1) Connect the dock.

2) Connect USB-A bus power keyboard to dock

3) Connect one SSD.

4 Install BACK-UPS software from SSD and connect USB-A power monitor cable to dock

4) Install Epson scanner software from SSD and connect USB-A powered scanner to dock

5) Connect powered Startech 7 port hub to dock and connect both powered external hard drives and a bus power external USB-A DVD writer to the hub.

6) Connect second bus powered SSD to Dock.

7) Install printer software from SSD and connect both Canon wireless printers to Macbook.

8) Turn everything off.

9) Connect RJ45 ethernet to dock and router and power all devices up to switch Macbook from wireless to wired connection ( necessary? ) I have been using a wired internet connection because my Dell Precision kept dropping the wireless one. Is this necessary or is Apple wireless more reliable?

Last, will the above sequence work OR do I need to connect every external device directly to the MacBook to install it for the first time even if multiple restarts are needed before connecting everything through the dock?

Any recommendations would be appreciated since I am not in the mood to crash a new laptop because I did something wrong.

Thank you for taking the time to read this and any recommendations in advance.

Howard

MacOS support case-sensitive file systems. Do not select one of these; they would only cause you trouble and if you don't need the capability (almost nobody does) you are better off with the case-insensitive file system options. More on MacOS filesystems here.

I think the advice to use HFS+ for HDDs is out of date, and I would use APFS, but HFS+ is OK.

It is, in my view, good practice to use a non-admin user account for normal work, keeping an admin account for only when you need it. You hardly ever need to log in to the admin account directly, as any activity that requires those permissions/rights will just ask you to enter the admin account name & password. So create that standard user account before you start and use it to set up your new machine.

I second the use of Apple's Migration Assistant to set up your MacBook, though of course you can start with a clean system and just copy data manually. Without knowing exactly what you have it's not possible to say which is better, so your call.

MacOS has Unix under the hood, and there are command line utilities that you could use to copy data, but I would just 'drag&drop' using the Finder. After copying from the ExFAT SSD to the APFS SSD, I would check whether there are any Windows-specific files that have been carried over and are redundant, and delete them before reformatting the source SSD and copying the data back to it. Similarly with the HDDs.

4i) and 4ii) - won't that software be Windows software? You'll probably need to get the MacOS versions from the internet. You may not need any scanner software at all, if it's one that MacOS supports out-of-the-box.

7) likewise with printer software. Connect your printers to the (wireless) network and try setting them up on the MacBook: System settings->Printers and scanners. You may not need drivers; if you do, you need the MacOS versions.

8) probably not necessary

9) whether wired or wireless is better depends on the type of each network (i.e. achievable speed) and whether you value convenience over maxing out throughput. If you're just connecting to other wireless devices or slow printers, there's likely no gain from using wired. Also, as graybalanced has said, you can have both enabled and have the computer switch to wireless when disconnected from wired. I have however found that MacOS will default to wireless after a system update, so be aware of that.

Multiple restarts are a Windows feature. Just leave your MacBook running 24/7, sleep when not needed. If something doesn't work as expected, power-cycling the machine may help, but it's not a must-do :-D

Welcome to the MacOS club, and enjoy.

 

[Howard]

Hello Nick,

Thank you for taking the time to read the entire plan and your recommendations.

Howard

 

[CAcreeks]

I think the advice to use HFS+ for HDDs is out of date, and I would use APFS, but HFS+ is OK.

One reason to pick HFS+ for spinning magnetic disk (HDD) is that you would be able to read it on Linux with the FuSE package. FuSE has no support for APFS, which is very complicated. Paragon also offers a $20 application to read HFS+ on Windows.

(9) Apple WiFi is very reliable, and seems to pick up our network router before my wife's W10 laptop does, and stays on it when hers does not.

You can probably do the printer and scanner installations after running Migration Assistant. M3 Macbook Pro has 3 USB-C (thunderbolt) ports so you might not need a hub/dock. The important items are your external disks. I would connect them right away and worry about conversion to HFS+ later. Actually I probably wouldn't do it at all, if the features and performance of exFAT on HDD are acceptable. For me exFAT worked find on SSD, so I didn't switch to APFS until I bought a new 2TB Samsung T7.

4i) and 4ii) - won't that software be Windows software? You'll probably need to get the MacOS versions from the internet. You may not need any scanner software at all, if it's one that MacOS supports out-of-the-box.

Epson scanner driver and Canon printer driver should install on their own, if they are new enough for Apple to support. We did have an issue with a very old Canon inkjet. You said the printer was replaced last year, so MacOS should recognize it. Hopefully scanner too.

 

[Nick on the Baltic]

ExFAT is not a journalling filesystem, and much less robust than HFS+ or APFS. It also doesn't support the metadata that MacOS uses.

 

[RHWeber]

Time machine will back up all of your hard drives that appear on your desk top. However, It will not back drives formatted in exfat.

 

[graybalanced]

SSDs can be in APFS, but I've read that using APFS on platter-based drives can lead to excessive fragmentation and "drive thrashing".

I have read the same around the web, but there seems to be an element of “it depends” here. The Mac blog at Eclecticlight.co ran tests and found out that whether and how much APFS is slower on a hard drive was not really about the file system inherently, but depends on things like partition order, how often the data changes (working vs archive) and how full the disk is.

It is very interesting reading and recommended for Mac techs. Be sure to read the Conclusions at the end for when APFS would be acceptable on a hard drive and when it would be a bad idea. Using a hard drive as an AFPS boot disk is still a very bad idea, but it seems OK for a static archive.

https://eclecticlight.co/2022/05/16/should-you-continue-using-hfs/

 

[lightandaprayer]

SSDs can be in APFS, but I've read that using APFS on platter-based drives can lead to excessive fragmentation and "drive thrashing".

I have read the same around the web, but there seems to be an element of “it depends” here. The Mac blog at Eclecticlight.co ran tests and found out that whether and how much APFS is slower on a hard drive was not really about the file system inherently, but depends on things like partition order, how often the data changes (working vs archive) and how full the disk is.

It is very interesting reading and recommended for Mac techs. Be sure to read the Conclusions at the end for when APFS would be acceptable on a hard drive and when it would be a bad idea. Using a hard drive as an AFPS boot disk is still a very bad idea, but it seems OK for a static archive.

https://eclecticlight.co/2022/05/16/should-you-continue-using-hfs/

FWIW, Dave Nanian at Shirt Pocket (SuperDuper!) advised me to format my HDD clone backup partition as APFS when I upgraded my OS. That was some years back and I haven't had any issues with it. I think it qualifies as one of those "it depends" cases. . .

 

[Howard]

Hello to all who have responded,

Thank you for the conversation about the best format for external hard drives. I do not understand all of the material in the links but I am reading it. As for the external device software, I have downloaded the Sonoma drivers for the scanner, printers, and Back-UPS to a USB-A flash drive.

Appreciate everyone's advice.

Howard

 

[lumigraphics]

I think the advice to use HFS+ for HDDs is out of date, and I would use APFS, but HFS+ is OK.

One reason to pick HFS+ for spinning magnetic disk (HDD) is that you would be able to read it on Linux with the FuSE package. FuSE has no support for APFS, which is very complicated. Paragon also offers a $20 application to read HFS+ on Windows.

(9) Apple WiFi is very reliable, and seems to pick up our network router before my wife's W10 laptop does, and stays on it when hers does not.

You can probably do the printer and scanner installations after running Migration Assistant. M3 Macbook Pro has 3 USB-C (thunderbolt) ports so you might not need a hub/dock. The important items are your external disks. I would connect them right away and worry about conversion to HFS+ later. Actually I probably wouldn't do it at all, if the features and performance of exFAT on HDD are acceptable. For me exFAT worked find on SSD, so I didn't switch to APFS until I bought a new 2TB Samsung T7.

4i) and 4ii) - won't that software be Windows software? You'll probably need to get the MacOS versions from the internet. You may not need any scanner software at all, if it's one that MacOS supports out-of-the-box.

Epson scanner driver and Canon printer driver should install on their own, if they are new enough for Apple to support. We did have an issue with a very old Canon inkjet. You said the printer was replaced last year, so MacOS should recognize it. Hopefully scanner too.

Linux has an APFS package available.

Ubuntu Manpage: fsapfsmount — mounts an Apple File System (APFS) volume

manpages.ubuntu.com

 

[CAcreeks]

Linux has an APFS package available.

https://manpages.ubuntu.com/manpages/jammy/man1/fsapfsmount.1.html

Thanks for the info.

It appears it does not use the FuSE framework. (Not a bad thing, just why I missed it.)

 

[Jacques Cornell]

With macOS, it is important to eject a drive before disconnecting it, in order to avoid possible data corruption. On Windows, I believe this is optional. On macOS, it's not. If you disconnect a drive without first ejecting it (one way is to drag it to the trash can), macOS will pop up a warning that the drive was not properly disconnected.

 

[Henry Richardson]

With macOS, it is important to eject a drive before disconnecting it, in order to avoid possible data corruption. On Windows, I believe this is optional. On macOS, it's not. If you disconnect a drive without first ejecting it (one way is to drag it to the trash can), macOS will pop up a warning that the drive was not properly disconnected.

And sometimes the drive will be corrupted. It has happened to me on MacOS.

 

[CAcreeks]

With macOS, it is important to eject a drive before disconnecting it, in order to avoid possible data corruption. On Windows, I believe this is optional. On macOS, it's not. If you disconnect a drive without first ejecting it (one way is to drag it to the trash can), macOS will pop up a warning that the drive was not properly disconnected.

Thanks for the reminder. I was accustomed to eject because Unix. A thread on Reddit says:

"Windows disables write caching on most USB drives, sacrificing performance so you're less likely to damage your data, but macOS does not do that. And even on Windows, I've still seen people pull the drive out after saving a file, but before the write was complete and ending up trashing at least that file."

On Windows you can enable write caching (wrong forum but FYI):

https://www.lacie.com/support/kb/how-to-improve-performance-of-an-external-drive-in-windows/