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Can't move Photo Library to external SSD

This is about a Mac Mini A1347, if I remember correctly. Made maybe about 2012.


I know someone who has a 612 GB Photo Library. Currently it is saved on her Mac Mini which has a 1 TB internal SSD. Occasionally her Mac tells her the drive is getting full and won't let her download more pics from her phone. So, we thought we could move the library to an external drive to free up space on the internal SSD and she could work with the library on the external drive. We tried to move it to a 1 TB Samsung external SSD but it wouldn't move or copy. After waiting a few minutes watching macOS say it is preparing to move/copy the file we get a message telling us the external drive isn't big enough even though it clearly is big enough. I Googled some stuff about it. I tried reformatting the drive from exFAT to APFS, still we couldn't move the library. We had a small (megabytes) test library file which contained no pics and we were able to move it to a different drive formatted as exFAT with no trouble. However, for some reason we can't move the 612 GB Photo Library. Is there a solution for this issue?


Alternatively we discussed upgrading the Mac Mini's SSD from 1 TB to 4 TB. She takes a lot of photos. In the Windows world you can just clone the smaller drive's contents to the larger drive, install the larger drive and you're good. Is that doable with a Mac? Or do I need to do a full backup of the OS installation as it is on the smaller drive and restore it to the larger drive after installing macOS on the larger drive?

iMac 27″, OS X 10.11

Posted on Feb 11, 2022 7:16 PM

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Posted on Feb 11, 2022 7:50 PM

The external drive must be Partitioned "GUID Partition Map" and Formatted "APFS or Mac OS Extended (Journaled)"

Please be aware that Partitioning and Formatting, will erase all of the current data on the external drive.

Then follow the steps at > https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201517


Yes installing a larger 2 or 4T SSD in a 2012 Mac Mini is doable,

see > https://eshop.macsales.com/shop/ssd/owc/mac-mini/2012


Just keep in mind that no matter which way you decide to go, you must always have at least 1 or better yet 2 external backup drives of equal or larger size.


Also FWIW, it is not really necessary to move your Photos and/or Music Libraries off to an expensive external SSD. While true it is way faster to initially move the Libraries to an SSD, it is not necessary and an external HDD is fine for everyday access to the Libraries.

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Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Feb 11, 2022 7:50 PM in response to Theotherotherguy

The external drive must be Partitioned "GUID Partition Map" and Formatted "APFS or Mac OS Extended (Journaled)"

Please be aware that Partitioning and Formatting, will erase all of the current data on the external drive.

Then follow the steps at > https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201517


Yes installing a larger 2 or 4T SSD in a 2012 Mac Mini is doable,

see > https://eshop.macsales.com/shop/ssd/owc/mac-mini/2012


Just keep in mind that no matter which way you decide to go, you must always have at least 1 or better yet 2 external backup drives of equal or larger size.


Also FWIW, it is not really necessary to move your Photos and/or Music Libraries off to an expensive external SSD. While true it is way faster to initially move the Libraries to an SSD, it is not necessary and an external HDD is fine for everyday access to the Libraries.

Feb 11, 2022 8:21 PM in response to den.thed

Thanks for the info.


Earlier today I wondered if the drive possibly not being initialized as GUID mattered. I didn't see a way to check in the Disk Utility app but I might've just missed it so no, I don't know for sure but I can figure out a way to check that next time I am at her house.


Though, I'm still not sure how we managed to put the empty test Photo Library on the exFAT formatted drive. Seems like according to everything I've read we shouldn't have been able to do that.


The other thing I neglected to check, now that I've noticed it after following your link, is making sure that the "Ignore ownership on this volume" checkbox is selected for the drive. 


I think she'd do best with making backups if she has some sort of Time Machine Capsule or some other sort of network based storage that can be used for Time Machine backups. She actually had one of these in the past but then upgraded her Macs and the person doing the upgrades took all of the network related Mac products too.


I think I'll get back to her some time next week. I'll remember to report the results.

Feb 26, 2022 10:55 AM in response to den.thed

After investigating the Mac Mini some more by disassembling it I found that there is room for a second drive in there so we've chosen to put in a 2 TB 2.5 inch 5400 RPM hard drive and keep her current OS drive in there too which is a 1 TB Samsung QVO SSD. I've bought the little SATA cable that we need for the second drive and we're waiting for delivery.


Looks like she will be OK with connecting a 4 TB external HDD to her Mac Mini for Time Machine backups every few weeks. The trouble with the 4 TB drive is that it is partitioned down the middle for another Mac Mini's Time Machine backups. A 2 TB partition for 1 Mac Mini and another 2 TB partition for a second Mac Mini. I tried adjusting the partitions so that 1 TB would be available for the other Mac Mini and 3 TB would be available for her Mac Mini. The pie chart graphical layout of the partitioning found in Disk Utility in Catalina is really not helpful. After messing with it for a while and not succeeding in taking 1 TB from one partition and adding it to the other partition I can only conclude that the free space I'm trying to move between partitions is actually at the end of the drive and can't be added to the 2 TB partition which is probably at the beginning of the drive. That's OK. We will figure out a solution for doing backups. If nothing else works we could redo the partitioning on the 4 TB drive or just get another external drive so that they'd have a separate drive for each computer.


We noticed something odd about the Photos Library. If I do Get Info on the file while it is on the SSD, the OS drive, I see that it is about 612 GB. However if I try copying it to an external drive (we got that working) the dialog box showing the copy process says the file is about 1.01 TB. What is causing the discrepancy in sizes?


The following is getting out of the scope of my thread title but I'll try asking about it while I'm here. The Mac Mini owner recently noticed that the play back of all videos in her Photos Library is choppy as if the frame rate is really low but the audio is OK. She said this is a new issue. I even tried exporting a short video from the Photos Library and saved it on the Desktop and played it back in QuickTime Player but it still wouldn't play smoothly like it should. I tried restarting her Mac Mini hoping maybe that would sort out the play back issue but it didn't. I took the same video file home with me to try playing it on a Windows 7 computer. It played with no issues in VLC Media Player. I tried playing it in QuickTime Player in Windows 7 but QuickTime Player said I needed extra components of some kind to play the video, then referred me to a web page that no longer exists. Back to the main issue, why can't the Mac Mini smoothly play videos? Might the trouble simply be QuickTime Player and we need to get rid of it and replace it with something else?

Feb 26, 2022 11:33 AM in response to Theotherotherguy

Good work. I still have 2 2012 Mac Mini’s around for that reason. At one time I had that SSD/HDD setup and it worked great. Currently 1 has a single SSD and the one that I use as a sever has dual SSDs.


Be careful using the same drive to backing up two different Mac’s. To prevent confusion and mistakes, it is best to have a backup drive for each one.


Hard to say. I suspect it is for space to move and organize the library.


Hard to say, hope you can find a solution.

Can't move Photo Library to external SSD

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