Issues trying to create external boot drive for an iMac

USB Drive Docks and Card Readers USBC-NVME
1

Hi - I have a Plugable NVMe USB 3.1 Gen 2 enclosure (housing a Lexar NM620 M.2 2280 PCle Gen3x4 NVMe ssd). I’m trying to use it as an external start up drive for my 2019 iMac (27”) with no success. Is there an incompatibility issue with these Macs and this enclosure?

I’ve used System settings to reboot, selecting the icon for the attached external ssd drive, it restarts, but only boots off the internal drive and ssd icon has disappeared off the desktop.

To set up I erased the ssd, formatted to APFS and GUID - one partition. Installed Sequoia after downloading a copy from App Store and used installer to install on ssd (both Mac HD and External ssd appearing in installer window).

After failed reboot to ssd, I applied Disk Utility first aid to internal and external disks and reset NVRAM and restarted. Repeated full process from erasing ssd to reinstalling OS15.1 from Applications folder.

Same problem.

Any ideas what I may be doing wrong or what else I should try? Thanks for in advance for any insights.

2

Hi Peter,

Thank you for posting! We are sorry things are not working as expected while using your USBC-NVME enclosure, and we would be happy to help.

Thank you as well for the detail you have provided and for the troubleshooting that you have already performed, it is all much appreciated.

I can see that you have also reached out us via our direct support email address → support@plugable.com with the same report, to which we have just sent our direct reply with the next steps.

For your reference, we have merged both reports together into one single support case in order to help keep all communication in one place.

Again for your reference, moving forward we will continue to assist you only via your direct message.

Thank you for giving us the chance to help!

Bob
Plugable Technologies