How to clone a 2013 11" MacBook Air mac and bootcamp partitions to a new ssd?

I have Carbon Copy Cloner and Winclone and I am familiar with them.

My question is how can I clone my existing 2013 11" Apple MacBook Air PCIe SSD to the new OWC Aura Pro X2 SSD BEFORE removing the Apple SSD from my 2013 MacBook Air?

The issue is, nobody seems to make an external enclosure/adapter for the OWC Aura Pro X2 SSD, which would make this so much simpler. OWC makes an external enclosure/adapter for the Apple PCIe SSD but ironically, not for their own memory. ????

If I swap out the Apple SSD on my 2013 MBA with the OWC Aura Pro X2 SSD and install the Apple SSD in the OWC enclosure/adapter, will I be able to boot from it to be able to effect the cloning process to the newly installed OWC SSD?

MacBook Air

Posted on Mar 18, 2020 10:56 AM

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Posted on Mar 18, 2020 1:49 PM

If you are currently running macOS 10.13+ then the new OWC SSD should be visible when installed internally since the MBAir should already have the necessary system firmware required for communicating with the OWC SSD. The OWC SSDs require macOS 10.13+ in order to see the SSD.


You can boot the original Apple SSD externally and run CCC to clone the macOS system to the new internal OWC SSD after you first erase the OWC SSD using Disk Utility. Erase the new SSD as GUID partition and APFS (top option). If you don't see the OWC SSD, then click on "View" within Disk Utility and select "Show All Devices" so that the physical drive appears in the left pane of Disk Utility.


Disclaimer: I don't use Bootcamp or Windows so this may contain inaccurate information:

As far as the Windows partition I'm not sure you will be able to clone it. I've seen posts on these forums where resizing partitions will stop Windows from booting since the Windows' bootloader is unable to locate the Windows system files. I think your best option is to use Bootcamp Assistant to resize the partitions for a new Windows install and install a fresh copy of Windows. I believe Windows may include an option that can allow you to migrate the old data to the new drive, but I've never personally done this before although I did notice such an option on the Windows Start menu one time a while back.


I believe WinClone will only be useful if you are restoring a Windows installation to the exact same physical location on the drive. I may be wrong here, but I believe this is correct from what I've read on other posts. Of course you if you have the time to experiment, then maybe you can prove me wrong here. I wouldn't mind ;-)

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Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Mar 18, 2020 1:49 PM in response to digital-moose

If you are currently running macOS 10.13+ then the new OWC SSD should be visible when installed internally since the MBAir should already have the necessary system firmware required for communicating with the OWC SSD. The OWC SSDs require macOS 10.13+ in order to see the SSD.


You can boot the original Apple SSD externally and run CCC to clone the macOS system to the new internal OWC SSD after you first erase the OWC SSD using Disk Utility. Erase the new SSD as GUID partition and APFS (top option). If you don't see the OWC SSD, then click on "View" within Disk Utility and select "Show All Devices" so that the physical drive appears in the left pane of Disk Utility.


Disclaimer: I don't use Bootcamp or Windows so this may contain inaccurate information:

As far as the Windows partition I'm not sure you will be able to clone it. I've seen posts on these forums where resizing partitions will stop Windows from booting since the Windows' bootloader is unable to locate the Windows system files. I think your best option is to use Bootcamp Assistant to resize the partitions for a new Windows install and install a fresh copy of Windows. I believe Windows may include an option that can allow you to migrate the old data to the new drive, but I've never personally done this before although I did notice such an option on the Windows Start menu one time a while back.


I believe WinClone will only be useful if you are restoring a Windows installation to the exact same physical location on the drive. I may be wrong here, but I believe this is correct from what I've read on other posts. Of course you if you have the time to experiment, then maybe you can prove me wrong here. I wouldn't mind ;-)

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How to clone a 2013 11" MacBook Air mac and bootcamp partitions to a new ssd?

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