couzin2000

Q: Cloning my Mac Mini's disk to a smaller SSD drive

I own a late-2011 Mac Mini. Inside is a 500Gb "spinning" hard drive. I also own an empty Samsung 850 EVO 128Gb SSD. I wish to use Disk Utility as per these video instructions to transfer all data from the original HD to the SSD.

 

All the instructions were followed and the whole system works fine, except for the error at the very end before the copying/cloning actually begins. During its setup phase, once launched, the Disk Utility app tells me that there is an error related to the size of the source drive that cannot be copied into the targeted SSD.

 

While I realize that size IS an issue, the contents of my original HD is limited to 29Gb. So copying everything should be easy, and I thought it was going to be handled by the app.

 

SO: should I shrink the size of the original HD's partition to the exact same size as that of the target SSD? Would this work properly? If so, where do I find any instructions to do this?

OR, did I miss an option somewhere in my setting up the Restore function? Is there an option somewhere I may have missed?

 

 

(In more detail: When selecting the source partition to Restore, I selected the WHOLE drive - not the included partition. Perhaps this is what's causing the problem? If I had selected the included partition only, would this have work immediately and Disk utility would have taken into account the size of the empty space, would have shrunk it down accordingly in an automatic way?)

Mac mini, OS X El Capitan (10.11.3), Late-2011

Posted on Mar 14, 2016 1:37 PM

Close

Q: Cloning my Mac Mini's disk to a smaller SSD drive

  • All replies
  • Helpful answers

  • by keg55,Solvedanswer

    keg55 keg55 Mar 14, 2016 8:34 PM in response to couzin2000
    Level 6 (8,417 points)
    Mac OS X
    Mar 14, 2016 8:34 PM in response to couzin2000

    If you're using Disk Utility Restore, your Destination drive (128GB SSD) has to be the same size as your Source drive (500GB HDD) or equal size. I have not split a large HDD into separate partitions then try to do the Restore. You could try this if you want.

     

    So, you're best alternative in my opinion is to boot into your Recovery HD from the HDD and reinstall OS X El Capitan onto your SSD. Then, during Setup, migrate your user accounts, data, apps, settings from your 500GB drive.

     

    You could also use Carbon Copy Cloner or SuperDuper! to clone from your HDD to your SSD assuming your HDD won't fill up your SSD while cloning. Then you would still need to reinstall OS X El Capitan to write your Recovery HD onto the SSD.

  • by couzin2000,

    couzin2000 couzin2000 Mar 14, 2016 8:37 PM in response to keg55
    Level 1 (4 points)
    Safari
    Mar 14, 2016 8:37 PM in response to keg55

    DId it from Recovery mode instead. I'm a noob when it cones to Mac, I found out about this feature after having posted. Worked like a charm over USB2.0, I have yet to use the migration assistant however. Have to wait, still an hour to go.

    While I am sure the other software you mentioned would work, I prefer using software right out of the box... ;-)

  • by steve359,

    steve359 steve359 Mar 14, 2016 9:56 PM in response to couzin2000
    Level 6 (14,032 points)
    Mar 14, 2016 9:56 PM in response to couzin2000

    CarbonCopyClone is a capable utility.  When you pay $40 for the full-paid, CCC will make incremental backups, saving old copies of modified/deleted files.  CCC is also good at moving partitions to smaller partitions, as long as the "used" part does not exceed the target partition capacity.