Adding SSD and installing Mountain Lion?

oneinten · Mar 28, 2013

Hello,

I've just putchased a 2012 base mini and want to swap the HD out for a 120gb SSD upon delivery.

My question is, as ML comes pre-installed. What are the best ways to go about installing it onto the SSD and selecting it as the boot drive?

As it comes pre-installed would I be able to download it from the App store at a later date as a backup? or would that mean purchasing it?

Thanks

philipma1957 · Mar 28, 2013

cheerup347 said:
Hello,

I've just putchased a 2012 base mini and want to swap the HD out for a 120gb SSD upon delivery.

My question is, as ML comes pre-installed. What are the best ways to go about installing it onto the SSD and selecting it as the boot drive?

As it comes pre-installed would I be able to download it from the App store at a later date as a backup? or would that mean purchasing it?

Thanks

do you own the 120gb ssd. if you do not please buy a bigger one. i will post more in 1 minute.

A swap of drives is pretty easy to do. also installing mountain lion is free since you purchased the mini. you just need to have an account at the apple app store. the account is free to set up. my reason about the ssd size is you are going in and doing a swap (ie risk of breakage) you may as well only do it one time. here is a link for a sale on ssd's

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=20-147-190

use code sa20mar for 20% more off. this is a 500gb size much better. under 270

oneinten · Mar 28, 2013

philipma1957 said:
do you own the 120gb ssd. if you do not please buy a bigger one. i will post more in 1 minute.

A swap of drives is pretty easy to do. also installing mountain lion is free since you purchased the mini. you just need to have an account at the apple app store. the account is free to set up. my reason about the ssd size is you are going in and doing a swap (ie risk of breakage) you may as well only do it one time. here is a link for a sale on ssd's

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820147189

use code sa20mar for 20% more off. this is a 240gb size much better. under 160

Thanks for the advise, I might add the SSD into the bottom drive bay and keep the existing 500GB as storage. I will be using a few external drives too as time goes on.

I already have an apple ID. when I get the mac, will it ask me to register it to my apple ID? and this will then allow me to obtain Mountain Lion in future via the app store?

If I do a straight swap and replace the HDD for an SSD, what's the easiest way to install Mountain Lion onto it?

philipma1957 · Mar 28, 2013

cheerup347 said:
Thanks for the advise, I might add the SSD into the bottom drive bay and keep the existing 500GB as storage. I will be using a few external drives too as time goes on.

I already have an apple ID. when I get the mac, will it ask me to register it to my apple ID? and this will then allow me to obtain Mountain Lion in future via the app store?

If I do a straight swap and replace the HDD for an SSD, what's the easiest way to install Mountain Lion onto it?

When you start the mac it will ask you to register it. I upgrade a lot of them. I always advise running it stock for a few hours to see if there is anything wrong with it.. once you know it works there are a few ways to do a swap. I like to put the new drive in an external drive. make sure it has the right format. I then use the internet recovery option and install to the external drive. I then boot with the external drive once to be sure it works. I then swap drives.

some videos to guide you.

http://eshop.macsales.com/installvideos/

some photos

http://www.ifixit.com/Guide/Installing+Mac+Mini+Late+2012+Hard+Drive+Replacement/11716/1

Weaselboy · Mar 29, 2013

cheerup347 said:
I already have an apple ID. when I get the mac, will it ask me to register it to my apple ID? and this will then allow me to obtain Mountain Lion in future via the app store?

If I do a straight swap and replace the HDD for an SSD, what's the easiest way to install Mountain Lion onto it?

No, it won't. You did not buy Mountain Lion (ML) in the App Store, so it will not be available to you there without paying for it again. If you ever need to reinstall ML, you can just boot to recovery and you can DL it from Apple's servers free. Apple will see that your machine's serial number came with ML and let you DL it again free with no AppleID involved at all.

There is no need for you to redownload ML and go thru the install. Once you get the new drive installed just use the free, 30 day trial of Carbon Copy Cloner to clone the old drive to the new. That will move the OS and all your data to the SSD. When that is done, go to System Prefs under Startup Disk and select the new SSD as the boot drive.

When you are all done you can just erase the HDD and use it however you like.

DRII · Mar 29, 2013

Weaselboy said:
No, it won't. You did not buy Mountain Lion (ML) in the App Store, so it will not be available to you there without paying for it again. If you ever need to reinstall ML, you can just boot to recovery and you can DL it from Apple's servers free. Apple will see that your machine's serial number came with ML and let you DL it again free with no AppleID involved at all.

There is no need for you to redownload ML and go thru the install. Once you get the new drive installed just use the free, 30 day trial of Carbon Copy Cloner to clone the old drive to the new. That will move the OS and all your data to the SSD. When that is done, go to System Prefs under Startup Disk and select the new SSD as the boot drive.

When you are all done you can just erase the HDD and use it however you like.

I'm in a similar situation that I need help with. I took my OS drive with Snow Leopard on it and I put it in a external enclosure. I just bought a 2012 cMBP and installed a 256GB SSD and installed Mountain Lion via Apples servers. I just downloaded CCC and I want to clone the drive. My questions are:

A) Will CCC erase ML and install SL?
B) Will there be any OS related duplicate files (ie. two Application folders)?

I've never done this before so all help is greatly appreciated.

benwiggy · Mar 29, 2013

DRII said:
I just bought a 2012 cMBP and installed a 256GB SSD and installed Mountain Lion via Apples servers. I just downloaded CCC and I want to clone the drive. My questions are:
A) Will CCC erase ML and install SL?
B) Will there be any OS related duplicate files (ie. two Application folders)?

I'm assuming you don't want to clone the SL drive onto the MBP. Cloning replaces the entire drive with the contents of another. Exactly. (Hence: clone.) So, yes, it would erase ML and replace it with SL and everything else.
SL won't run on your 2012 MBP, because SL doesn't know about technology from the future.

What I think you want to do is to use Migration Assistant to copy over your user data, settings and Applications from the SL external onto the new ML SSD.

Weaselboy · Mar 29, 2013

DRII said:
I'm in a similar situation that I need help with. I took my OS drive with Snow Leopard on it and I put it in a external enclosure. I just bought a 2012 cMBP and installed a 256GB SSD and installed Mountain Lion via Apples servers. I just downloaded CCC and I want to clone the drive. My questions are:

A) Will CCC erase ML and install SL?
B) Will there be any OS related duplicate files (ie. two Application folders)?

I've never done this before so all help is greatly appreciated.

A) Yes it will. Then you will have a problem, because your Retina will not run on Snow Leopard.

B) No. A normal CCC clone deletes everything on the target drive and replaces it with what is on the source drive.

Here is what you should do. Start the Retina and then attached the old Snow Leopard drive in the enclosure. Now launch Migration Assistant (/Applications/Utilities) on the Retina and point it to the external disk to import your user account and all apps and data. When you are done you user account from Snow will now be on the Retina SSD will all apps and data right where is always was.

One caveat here. If you have already made a DRII account on the Retina and you also had the same name DRII account on the Snow Leopard disk, Migration Assist will try to import the account into itself and make a mess with duplicate folder etc. This would be a bad thing

.

To avoid this you need make a new temp account on the Retina, then delete the DRII account and run Migration Assistant from the temp account. This will pull the DRII in clean from the Snow disk. After you are done you can login to the DRII account and delete the temp account.

I am assuming here your data on the Snow disk is current and that is what you want to bring in intact on the Retina. If you have some other setup going on, tell me what it is and we can work out the best scenario for you.

The BEST way to do this is at the end of a new/clean OS install just run the Migration Assistant to import your data.

DRII · Mar 29, 2013

Thanks guys! It's actually a cMBP and not a rMBP, but your spot on Weasel. I didn't do the create a temp acct thing on it, cause I believe I have it a new name. If any issues with that, I will hit you guys back! Thanks again

Weaselboy · Mar 29, 2013

DRII said:
Thanks guys! It's actually a cMBP and not a rMBP, but your spot on Weasel. I didn't do the create a temp acct thing on it, cause I believe I have it a new name. If any issues with that, I will hit you guys back! Thanks again

Ackk...

I don't know where in the world I got Retina out of that! Sorry.

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Adding SSD and installing Mountain Lion?

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