I am purchasing a SSD and do not know what to do when transferring data. I have 90GB on my current HDD and the SSD is 120GB so there is enough room, but how do I go about transferring the data before I install it? Any help would be apreciated.
Thanks,
John
MacBook Pro, Mac OS X (10.7.5)
The easiest method is to put the new SSD in a 2.5" enclosure and clone it with a program like Carbon Copy Cloner. Just a suggestion though... prices have fallen a lot on SSD's. You might want to consider going a little bigger to leave room for future expansion.
What do you mean an enclosure?
The other advantage is that you can then put your old HD in it when you're done and use it to hold large files or whatever.
These are enclosures fo a 2.5" SATA haed drive:
http://www.newegg.com/External-Enclosures/SubCategory/ID-92
Note that the first thing you must do is to format the new SSD in Disk Utility>Erase to Mac OS Extended (Journaled).
You also may use DISK UTILITY>RESTORE to transfer the data from the internal Hard drive to the external one.
Ciao.
Upgrading Your MacBook Pro with a Solid State Drive
Note this guide only applies to non retina MBP models, which do not have an enclosure for their flash storage (thank's to mende1 for this clarification).
oh so it basically just turns your SSD/HDD into an external hard-drive? Or am I missing the point lol
Yes. So the SSD is an external drive until you clone it. Then swap it into the hard drive bay in your machine, and you can now put the HD in the enclosure.
It is a method to transfer data from your old boot drive (HDD) to your new one (SSD). The two ways easiest methods to go about doing so involve temporarily using either one or the other as an external drive. See the excerpt below:
"There are two ways to go about getting the data from your old drive to your SSD. The first is to install the SSD into your enclosure and make your clone before installing the SSD. The second is simply to install the SSD into your hard drive bay and your old hard drive into your enclosure and boot from the enclosure. No one way is better than the other. "
Ok so if I do that then I can only transfer the programs I want to the SSD and keep the HDD for those I don't always need along with other files?
Yes. You can keep the HDD in the enclosure and use it as you would use any traditional external HDD.
Ok thanks, this makes it quite a bit easier
nbar wrote:
No one way is better than the other. "
I have to disagree with the author of this quote. Admittedly a nit and very rare, if the new drive turns out to be faulty, the old drive then has to be physically reinstalled into the MBP. Therefore it really is best to do the clone with the new drive in the enclosure, test it, and do the physical swap.
(Certainly not a criticism of nbar in any manner) 🙂
Ciao.
How to transfer/install SSD from HDD
