I am adding an SSD Drive to my Mac Mini, which is not the hard part to do. How can I make my mac boot from it? How to install the OS to it?

Install the SSD, then boot OS X Internet Recovery by simultaneously holding the Command, Option, and R keys while starting the Mini.

You will see the following screen:

When the following screen appears, select Disk Utility.

Select the SSD, then the Erase tab. Next to "Format" select Mac OS X Extended (Journaled), give it a name, and click the Erase... button.

When it finishes, quit Disk Utility which will return to the above screen. Select Reinstall Mac OS X and choose your SSD. You will need the Apple ID you used to purchase Mountain Lion.

It may take a few hours to download and install all its components.

Your use of the term "adding" tells me that you'll end up with two drives, the SSD and the original boot drive.

Once you have the SSD installed you can boot from the original HDD and use 'Disk Utility' to partition and format your new SSD. Next I would suggest downloading and running 'Carbon Copy Cloner' to clone your existing boot drive to the new SSD. Lastly open 'System Preferences' and select the new SSD as your boot drive and finally restart.

Use SuperDuper or carbon copy cloner to clone the HD to the target drive (your new SSD)

two clicks and sit back for 40 mins

after done, open and install. 😊

You can boot to your current Recovery HD, launch Disk Utility, format the SSD, select your Macintosh HD; then Restore your HDD to the SSD. This will clone BOTH the OS and Recovery HD to the SSD.

keg55 wrote:

You can boot to your current Recovery HD, launch Disk Utility, format the SSD, select your Macintosh HD; then Restore your HDD to the SSD. This will clone BOTH the OS and Recovery HD to the SSD.

As will Carbon Copy also.

woodturner wrote:

As will Carbon Copy also.

True, if one knows about using CCC's (v3.5.2) Disk Center to clone the Recovery HD to the drive. OS X's Disk Utility does both during the Restore.

But to everyone's point in this thread, there are multiple ways to clone the HDD to the SSD.

Nice answers to the OP. I have a related question: when the Recovery HD or Carbon Copy is used is it possible to only move the system and programs and not data such as pictures and videos? I am considering this move but would only like to have to get. 250ish GB SSD and not move the 300GB of other data (mostly old photos and videos) on my current 500GB HDD. Thanks in advance for the thoughts

Carbon Copy does alow you to 'unselect' files and folders that you do not want copied.

Just be careful that you leave all of OS X system files alone so you end up with a bootable system.

You could also install the system via CD/DVD/USB to the new drive, boot from it and then use the Migration Assistant which will allow you to grab all your system settings and also gives you the option of choosing which other files to copy across also.

I added an SSD to my MBP and did it this way.

move disk ssd from macbook to mini

I purchased a mini, late 2012 model, and decided to move my 512GB ssd out of my macbook pro 13, mid 2011 model. I was surprised to find that when I powered the mini up, it booted right into OSX mavericks 10.9.2 without any issue! No reinstall needed and everything is working just as it had in my macbook.