Disk Utility to clone my HDD to SSD?

1. Yes, it's possible and very reliable.
2. The Recovery HD partition is cloned automatically.
3. It's simpler to do than with CCC.

Clone Mavericks, Lion/Mountain Lion using Restore Option of Disk Utility

Boot to the Recovery HD:

Restart the computer and after the chime press and hold down the COMMAND and R keys until the menu screen appears. Alternatively, restart the computer and after the chime press and hold down the OPTION key until the boot manager screen appears. Select the Recovery HD and click on the downward pointing arrow button.

1. Select Disk Utility from the main menu then press the Continue

button.

2. Select the destination volume from the left side list.

3. Click on the Restore tab in the DU main window.

4. Select the destination volume from the left side list and drag it

to the Destination entry field.

5. Select the source volume from the left side list and drag it to

the Source entry field.

6. Double-check you got it right, then click on the Restore button.

Destination means the SSD drive. Source means the internal startup drive.

Put the SSD into an external enclosure so you can clone your HDD to it. When you finish test to be sure the computer will boot from the SSD:

Boot Using OPTION key:

1. Restart the computer.

2. Immediately after the chime press and hold down the

"OPTION" key.

3. Release the key when the boot manager appears.

4. Select the SSD icon from which you want to boot.

5. Click on the arrow button below the icon.

If all is well, then remove the SSD from the enclosure and install it in the computer.

Jet787 wrote:

Thanks. As regarding #3, since your explanation looks straight forward, is it really worth or reason to pay for a software if Disk Utility is available?

Yes it is. Disk Utility will clone the entire HDD but will not allow for incremental updates. CCC will allow for those so it is a good backup option to use in conjunction with Time Machine.

Ciao.

I certainly never have. I use CCC as a backup/restore tool, mainly. But for just basic cloning I always rely on Disk Utility. Although CCC will clone just fine, it will not clone the Recovery HD automatically. You must do that as a separate operation.

If you use Time Machine for normal backups then you don't need to use CCC. CCC cannot replace Time Machine, but it can be used to make additional backups on separate drives. I'm a big fan of having multiple backups done multiple ways to protect ones data from loss.

I consider CCC a valuable backup tool as well as a cloning tool. If you choose to make additional backups using CCC or any other backup utility, do not use your Time Capsule for those backups. This is aside from the fact that you cannot actually partition a Time Capsule drive. 🙂

Kappy has the correct answer. Two backups are much better than one and SEPARATE drives for CCC and TM. If one fails, the other is still there ready to go.

Ciao.

I encourage any form of additional backup. I do, however, discourage complete reliance on Time Machine versus other backup utilities. When Time Machine goes south it can completely corrupt a backup. Personally, I would not put all my faith on Time Machine. At least in my experience Time Machine is less reliable that any other decent backup utility such as CCC.

I do use Time Machine for one backup. But I also make regular backups using CCC on different drives. I backup with CCC daily.

A further problem with Time Machine is that eventually it will consume all the space on the backup drive. At that point you pretty much have two options: store the old drive and install a new one; erase the backup drive and start over. CCC simply overwrites old files with new ones and never uses more backup space than the size of the drive it backs up.

Kappy wrote:

A further problem with Time Machine is that eventually it will consume all the space on the backup drive. At that point you pretty much have two options: store the old drive and install a new one; erase the backup drive and start over.

A minor disagreement with Kappy in this instance. In order to extract the maximum advantage from Time Machine, a HDD should be significantly larger than the primary or source HDD. When the Time Machine HDD does get full, Time Machine will then delete the oldest backups in order to make room for the newest ones. It becomes a question of how far back does one need for historical data. If you want to retain all historical data, then Kappy is correct, but that rarely will be that case. A Time Machine HDD 2 times the source HDD will take a long time to become full unless you have a very volatile source HDD.

Ciao.

This will not save you from the problem, it will merely extend the amount of time until it happens. Furthermore, for people backing up TBs of data it is difficult to get enough storage space for Time Machine at any reasonable cost.

Hopefully it will be.