EXTERNAL BOOT VOLUMES
I have been able to successfully create a second bootable volume on the internal HD in my M1 Mac mini, but as of this date I have been unable to create a bootable external boot volume. 🤬 I am not alone in that difficulty, there are dozens of threads in support forums all reporting similar results. The common error is Which I interpret to mean the installer is not creating the boot image.
From my experience and network searches I have learned….

• You need to forget everything you knew about creating an external boot volume on an Intel Mac as it is not applicable, isn't available, or simply doesn't work on an M1 Mac 😡
• If there is an equivalent to permitting booting from an external drive on an Intel Mac, no one has found how to access it on an M1 Mac ❓
• I have found no reports of successfully creating an external boot drive via the Recovery Disk installation but it will create a bootable volume group on the internal drive 🤷‍♂️
• 100% of the few successes reported have been on Thunderbolt connected drives 🤔 and a 100% failure rate on USB connected drives. (there is speculation USB simply isn't fast enough 🤷‍♂️ )
• The only successful external installs I have read about resulted from using the macOS 11 or 11.0.1 installer from the App Store not the Recovery Drive 😳
• From those successes there are reports indicating an option boot may not be successful either but changing the boot drive in System Preferences is reliable.

This remains a work-in-process.

SIP:
It is still possible to disable SIP (System Integrity Protection) on M1 Macs using crsutil but…

• It has to be done in Terminal while booted from the Recovery Drive on a boot volume by boot volume basis
• Disabling SIP also disables iOS apps on the M1 Mac 🤷‍♂️

SETTINGS SCOPE:
Settings which were for an entire system on Intel Macs, are set on a on a boot volume by boot volume basis on M1 Macs including:

• Gatekeeper options
• SIP (System Integrity Protection)
• Beta test authorization

and these can only be set while booted from the Recovery Drive.

Whenever Apple introduces a new OS version or machine configuration I invariably marvel over some of the new "features" and wonder if they've got a "Department of Cockeyed Ideas" that dreams them up.

I wonder if, for instance, disabling SIP will be perpetuated in clones (when and if cloning ever becomes possible)?

I can see how that could go either way, but I suspect the reason it goes one way or the other has far more to do with Apple's plans for macOS 12 than compatibility with macOS 10. For what it is worth, I am finding the boot volume by boot volume settings useful in troubleshooting. Sort of like the traditional test account on steroids.

My primary issue at the moment is the inability to create a bootable external drive. If that can't be worked out, clones per. se. are almost useless.

I thought Mike Bombich of Carbon Copy Cloner fame has said that indeed, the only way (for now) to create a bootable external drive, was to use Apple's Installer first to install the OS on the external drive then use CCC to clone the Data volume. Clunky but bootable. You as much said this in your fifth bullet point above.

Unfortunately Mike's solution does work on M1 Macs. I just spent the last four hours trying to create a bootable external drive with zero success. What I have learned is:

• The App Store installer does not work any better than the Recovery Disk installer, just a bit differently.
• Either installer requires a password for an admin user on the system to install on any drive/volume on the system
• Copying user settings is an option when initiating the installation.
• Whether the user data is copied or not, if the authorizing account is on an encrypted volume the install fails with the error unable to transfer ownership
• Once the installer is downloaded the full installation took 18½ minutes to the first boot attempt. (The installer claims 54 minutes)
• Even if the installer completes normally the external volume boot fails with an error 104 (dsNeedToWriteBootBlocks)
• I went through the steps to create a bootable thumb drive using the command line and Apple's own tool for creating a bootable drive. The process completed successfully, but the drive will not boot.

If I sound discouraged, I am. I have no idea what to try next.

I found Booting an M1 Mac from an external disk: it is possible – The Eclectic Light Company.

Is it at all helpful?

It seems that the gist of the article is "If you’re trying to create and use a bootable external disk for M1 Macs, I therefore recommend that you don’t waste your time discovering which USB-C SSDs might be compatible: go straight for a Thunderbolt 3 enclosure".
Even with that the author makes it sound as if it is a less than perfect procedure.

As I read it, the author says the procedure works just fine to create an external that will boot an M1, barring the issue with ejecting the data volume.

And, theoretically, anyhow, CCC should be able to clone your data volume to the newly created installation.

Sounds like a solution, albeit an expensive one.

Thanks for the input Artie, the Eclectic Light article was my troubleshooting starting point:
You got that right Ira, in fact, I would say it is FAR less than perfect. 😠

• I am installing to a Samsung X5 SSD that is TB3.
• If I validate the installation using a user on an encrypted volume the installation quits with the error "Unable to transfer ownership of the volume"
• If I validate using a user on an unencrypted volume the installation apparently completes normally, but when the system attempts to boot the newly installed volume the boot fails with a 104 error.
• If I am able to run the install without validating from an existing user on the system (which is NOT easy) the newly installed volume boot fails with an error 104.
• The I get the same result using the Recovery Drive, the installer downloaded from the App Store, and a bootable thumb drive (which is nothing more than the recovery drive with the installer already downloaded but it does save time)

By-the-way using either the downloaded installer package or the bootable thumb drive created from that downloaded installer package to a high speed SSD such as the Samsung X5 only takes 18½ minutes, so I have been able to make lots of trials in a surprisingly short length of time. And before you ask, I have downloaded the installer twice and recreated the thumb drive three times just in case I made an error there.

Color me bumfuzzled! 😫

I am wondering if this is not a case where the hardware development got ahead of the software developers' ability to foresee all the possible ramifications of changes that were being made or possibly too much bleed over from the iOS/iPadOS side (wait, Apple's building is round so maybe it would be the iOS/iPadOS ring) of the house.

You seem to be saying that despite the fact that the article's author presents the procedure as a sure thing, you can't get a bootable volume under any circumstances?

Something's wacky somewhere.

You got it. That is exactly what I am saying. Had I started with a clean new system the resukrts might have been different, but I did try from a clean installer. He was also installing 11.0.1 and all I can get is 11.1. Another complication is my system is encrypted, but it still should work and there are lots of reports similar to mine. 🤬

SUCCESS

The solution was to discard all the sage advice. I successfully created a bootable clone from the bootable thumb drive using an OWC Envoy Pro USB 3.1 Gen 2 SSD connected to a USB 3.0 port. It was slow, taking several hours for complete recovery, but it is bootable and 100% complete including a full restore from the Time Machine backup. How practical this would be to do very often is a subject of conjecture but more on that tomorrow. Right now it is past my bedtime.

PROGRESS REPORT

I switched the Envoy Pro from a USB 3.0 port to a USB 3.1 Gen 2 port (have you any idea how hard it is to find a USB 3.1 gen 2 hub?) and unsurprisingly it is nearly twice as fast as it was on the USB 3.0 port. It boots reliably and works well. It is not a true clone of course and whether it will survive the data volume being cloned from the internal volume is yet to be determined. (One step at a time.)

FINDINGS TO DATE

• It is possible to create a bootable external drive for an M1 Mac but it may take some experimentation to find a combination of installer, target drive, and port connection that works for you. 🤷‍♂️
• After the initial install completes there are several tasks that must be performed to have a fully functioning system and multiple reboots are required.
• Best case this is NOT a replacement for a real ASR clone (I hope Apple is diligently working on that)
• Running the installer from a Thumb Drive would be my suggestion. You can find instructions for that in this osXDaily article. Your Flash drive should have a bare minimum of 16GB, have a reasonably fast read rate, and preferably both Type A and C USB connectors.

TO BE DETERMINED

• Will a bootable external drive survive cloning the data volume from the internal drive?
• Were the previous failures related to the installer, the connection port, or the target device, all of the above, none of the above, karma?
• Is there a reliable combination for creating external boot drive for an M1 Mac?

MORE TO FOLLOW

MORE TEST RESULTS

1. I have been completely unsuccessful in creating a bootable external drive on a Thunderbolt drive
2. I have been successful in creating a bootable external SSDs on two external drives with USB 3.1 gen 2 connections to Tunderbolt 3 ports
3. I have been successful in creating a bootable external SSDs on two external drives with USB 3.1 gen 2 connections to USB 3.0 ports
4. I have been successful in creating a bootable external SSDs on two external drives with USB 3.1 gen 2 connections to USB 3.1 gen 2 ports
5. My Samsung Thunderbolt 3 SSD refuses to mount on any USB port
6. I have not attempted to create a bootable drive on rotating rust (HD) media
7. All attempts used a bootable flash drive installer created using these instructions from OS X Daily

CONCLUSIONS

1. With the right media and connection it is not difficult to create a bootable external drive for M1 macs given the right combination of connecting media, drive media, and installer
2. Contrary to other reports I was completely unsuccessful using the Thunderbolt ports to create the drive
3. The failure of the Samsung X5 SSD to mount is curious given Thunderbolt's compatibility with USB 2.0 through 4. I have to explore this further.

TBD

• Will an external drive survive having a revised data volume cloned to it via CCC?

A thorough summary of your situation. Thanks, joemikeb.

In light of your third "Conclusions" and your #2 conclusion being contrary to other reports, do you suspect a problem with your Samsung SSD?

It had occurred to me the Thunderbolt 3 standard is very broad and as a result there have been some very different performance and other variations, particularly in the PC realm. (We haven't seen that nearly as much in Macs as Apple has always rigorously adhered to the maximums permitted in the standard.) I would be tempted to speculate Samsung used a more minimal approach to the standards if it weren't for the fact that I attempted to create a bootable volume on an OWC Aura Thunderbolt 3 SSD that exhibits a performance curve very close to the internal SSD in the previous Intel Mac mini and if anything the Samsung install got further along than the OWC install.

Using the flash drive installer should have eliminated any software variations but I did NOT connect directly to a Thunderbolt 4 port and instead used either a daisy chained or distributed connection which potentially might have made a difference. At that point the number of possible permutations starts to expand dramatically and I am not inclined to spend the time and energy it would take to explore all of the possibilities. I have succeeded in meeting my objective of reliably creating a bootable external drive for my M1 Mac mini and I am confident in my conclusion "...it is not difficult to create a bootable external drive for M1 macs given the right combination of connecting media, drive media, and installer", or perhaps I should have been more emphatic in expressing my caveat. 🤷‍♂️

I wonder if Apple's difficulty getting their ASR¹ utility to work on the M1 Macs might be related to the difficulty so many users are encountering creating bootable external drives? My success using the slower USB 3.x devices has also led me to speculate the speed with which the M1 SoC moves data internally might be creating timing errors that are contributing to the problem, but that seems unlikely.

——————-

¹Apple Software Restore — the BSD utility used by Carbon Copy Cloner© to create bootable macOS 11 clones.

If I may slightly digress in view of your conclusion to share a favorite among math professors: so the professor had been lecturing non-stop for half an hour and the blackboard is completely covered with equations, symbols and notation. "And it is obvious…" the professor says while turning to look at the board. The professor stares at the board for a minute, two minutes, four minutes. "Yes, it's obvious."

[if it requires explanation, then just keep moving along ]

To continue the digression: On the first day of class, one of my professors had an equation completely filling over fifty feet of chalkboard with a single equation. He walked in, turned to the class and said, "The solution is intuitively obvious" erased the board and walked out of the room. We then spent the entire semester working through that equation step-by-step. Shortly before the end of the semester, it was revealed that one of the fundamental assumptions of the equation had been proven to be false and the equation was being withdrawn from the literature. That was fine with me as I never understood the 🤬 thing. We were given credit for the course, but no grade. 🤯. true story

To continue with the "math" digression, I majored in Mathematics in college, and have BS and MS degrees in Math. I never had a bad professor in any math course I took, and definitely never one taking the entire class time to discuss one equation. To me, that would have been counter-productive.

On the other side, I used to teach Mathematics part-time at some schools (mostly community colleges), and I also never pulled such a stunt. Unfortunately, as time went on, the students wanted to do less and less work, and began to feel more and more entitled to being "rewarded" for not doing much. I did not succumb to that, but it sure was disappointing. I have so many stories I could tell!

The class I referred to was a graduate level course in Economics and the equation purported to describe market behavior.

Hmm, "providing" such a farce is bad enough, but in a graduate level course? And getting credit for the course without doing anything! What a sham!

I am very fond of this comment: "Economists exist in order to make astrologers look good."

Good one!

Some of my favorites for Mathematicians:

"Proof is trivial"

"It is clear that ..."

"It can be easily shown"

And here is one from a math text:

"I never came across one of Laplace's 'Thus it plainly appears' without feeling sure that I have hours of hard work before me to fill up the chasm and find out and show how it plainly appears".

It was the professors first and only semester at the university. The dean felt he had to do something for the class members who had spent so many hours, slogging though the equation proof, not to mention the tuition and fees, thus credit for three semester hours but no grade as he had nothing to rate our work on and the professor had already left town.

Still a weak excuse, at best. The students needed to complain, so that the jerk could have been removed/replaced

Perhaps that statement is more apropos than I thought at the time I wrote it. Since then I have found booting from the drives I previously created was a sometimes thing. Sometimes they worked and sometimes they didn't. And I was still trying to figure out the problem with the Samsung SSD. My configuration since the beginning has been the Samsung drive connected to an OWC Thunderbolt 4 hub which in turn is connected to one of the Thunderbolt 4 ports on the M1 Mac mini.

Purely on a hunch, I disconnected the OWC Thunderbolt 4 hub and connected the Samsung directly to the Thunderbolt 4 port on the Mac mini and 💥SUCCESS! 🎉 I was easily able to create a bootable image on the Samsung drive, and reliably reboot from it multiple times. Even better, it is within a hairs breadth of being as fast as the internal drive. I reiterate, "...it is not difficult easy to create a bootable external drive SSD for M1 macs given the right combination of connecting media, drive media, and installer"

I am planning a long chat with OWC Tech Support tomorrow.

Good news!

Considering the configuration of hardware and software (including, simultaneously, all/most available betas) you're running, I've often wondered how you're able to ever figure out what's what when something goes wrong.

GOOD SHOW!

Here's another issue with M1: Apple plans macOS software fix for M1 Mac Bluetooth connectivity issues

My bluetooth connectivity issues no longer exist. On the other hand, I have yet to successfully connect to my SoftRAID array and reliably bootable external drives can be iffy.

M1 MAC EXTERNAL BOOT DRIVE DISCOVERIES

1. From what I have experience and read elsewhere creating a bootable external drive on an M1 Mac is tricky. Even a different model SSD from the same manufacturer can make a difference. The combination I know that works is a Samsung X5 512GB Thunderbolt 3 SSD, directly connected to either of the Thunderbolt 4 ports on an M1 Mac, and using a bootable flash drive installer. (Instructions for creating a bootable installer here.
2. No other combination of connecting ports, drives, etc. I tried either completed the installation process or subsequently failed to boot with an error 104. 🤬
3. If you have stored your data, Documents, Desktop, etc. on iCloud recovery is a piece of cake 🎂, simply log into your iCloud account in System Preferences and have a network connection.
4. Recovery from TM or another System drive is a total PITA 🥵 because all of the various security settings have to be reset, drivers and some apps must be reinstalled, etc. (did I mention all the 🤬 security settings have to be reset.) NOTE: Migration Assistant will not migrate data from a newer OS version like macOS 11.2 to an older macOS installation like macOS 11.1. (If only Apple would get the ASR utility to work on M1 Macs so they could be cloned. I am becoming a convert to cloning. 🥺)
5. Speaking of cloning, I have yet to get Mike Bombich's suggestion of how to create a bootable clone to work, but I am still trying. I suspect that like creating a bootable external drive on M1 Macs it is a matter of figuring out the right configuration, devices, and holding your mouth right and resetting all the 🤬 security settings.

MACOS 11 TIME MACHINE DISCOVERY

During all of the installs, reinstalls, recoveries, etc. I noticed a new to me feature in Time Machine. Previously if you wanted to encrypt Time Machine backups that was done by backing up to a previously encrypted drive. I don't know when this changed, but in Big Sur the option has been added to the Time Machine pane in System Preferences "Encrypt backup" which does exactly that, it encrypts your Time Machine backup(s). The downside is that it must erase the drive in order to setup encrypted backups. The upside is it works rapidly and seamlessly using a very secure encryption algorithm.

I just came across this: Bug in macOS Fast User Switching logs out M1 Mac users

BACKGROUND:

I started this thread months ago to report what I encountered in the process of moving to an M1 Mac mini. Along the way there were more than a few surprises, issues, and changes that had to be dealt with by Apple, by third party developers, and/or by me.

WHO WAS/IS/WILL BE AFFECTED WHEN THEY CONVERT:

1. At the average user level the only thing most will notice are changes in the visual look and feel of macOS 11 (Big Sur) and noticeably faster performance of Apple silicon.
2. At the Power user and troubleshooting level Big Sur has a ton of different features and under the hood organizational changes mostly related to enhanced security concerns and where and how this is managed can be significantly different between systems on Intel and Apple silicon.
3. For the vast majority of developers moving to Apple silicon native code has been easy and straight forward.
4. For a few developers, implementing their functional features on Apple silicon and Big Sur has presented significant challenges.

MAJOR ISSUES I ENCOUNTERED:

1. BOOTABLE EXTERNAL DRIVES At this point in time, as far as I know, the ONLY bootable external drives are high quality Thunderbolt 3 SSDs connected directly to either of the two Thunderbolt 4 ports on an M1 Mac.
2. BOOTABLE CLONES Given macOS 11.3 beta 5 or later (Apple fixed their ASR utility) on an M1 Mac, Carbon Copy Cloner Version 5.1.26-b4 (or later?) can make a bootable clone subject to the restrictions on all bootable external drives. (See this post for remaining questions and/or issues.)
3. KERNEL EXTENSIONS Big Sur has made a concerted effort to move all kernel extensions out of the "system area" and into the "user area" which has presented significant challenges to some software developers. Most developers, like Rogue Amoeba, appear to have moved their extension functionality to a LaunchDaemon. For performance reasons SoftRAID has chosen to stick with Kernel Extensions. Installation of kernel extensions is a multi step process, typically requiring at least two reboots on M1 Macs. In some cases, mine included, installing those kernel extensions and updating evolved into an extended process requiring the use of the uninstalling utility in SoftRAID, deleting files via Finder, flushing caches with Terminal commands and numerous reboots. For others it has been a smooth and relatively simple process. In the final analysis my SoftRAID works and performs beautifully, but the SoftRAID 6.0.1 app cannot access or manage it because the drives in the array are formatted APFS (fix promised in SoftRAID 6.0.2) and the array cannot be encrypted (awaiting a "fix" in a future update of Big Sur).

CONCLUSIONS:

• My last stopper (SoftRAID) was resolved this morning! (See item 3 preceding)
• Would I recommend a Mac with Apple Silicon?: You better believe I would. The startup has been a little shaky but everyone, including Apple, is on a learning curve with this OS and hardware platform. Considering the magnitude of the project, It has IMHO been surprisingly smooth.
• Would I change anything?; There has been some criticism about the number of ports on the M1 Mac and to be candid, it has taken me several reconfigurations of my system (including upgrading two cables from Thunderbolt 3 to Thunderbolt 4) to get everything running the way I want, but the existing configuration and ports have proven to be very flexible and capable of supporting anything from a very minimal laptop configuration to a complex system such as mine with up to 17 external devices including four external SSDs, a four drive RAID array, three external HDs, two monitors, and assorted other low speed USB 3.0 printers/scanners/scales, and multiple bluetooth keyboards, trackpads, mice, headphones, speakers, etc.. I wondered if 16GB of memory would be enough, but I have never found "memory pressure" to be out of the green range. Similarly I questioned whether a 500GB internal drive would be big enough, but at the moment I have 192GB of free and purgeable space on the internal drive. So all things considered the answer is PROBABLY NOT.

Joe, Thank you for the detailed and timely M-1 System on a Chip Apple Silicon updates. The details you've provided are extremely helpful in advising my friends on their newest Mac purchase....and choosing the M-1 Mac over the Intel Mac is undoubtedly going to be the solution that I will recommend.