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Changing my main drive

S

Skika

macrumors 68030
Original poster
Mar 11, 2009
2,999
1,246
Hi,

i have an early 2011 15 inch MBP in which i installed an optibay where i put the stock 500gb drive and i put an intel 80gb SSD drive(which i also had in my previous C2D 2009 MBP) as my primary drive. I just purchased a new Crucial SSD drive, with which i would like to replace the Intel SSD. What is the best and most unpainful way of doing that? I would like to keep all the apps and everything i have as now.

Thank you.
 
Skika said:
Hi,

i have an early 2011 15 inch MBP in which i installed an optibay where i put the stock 500gb drive and i put an intel 80gb SSD drive(which i also had in my previous C2D 2009 MBP) as my primary drive. I just purchased a new Crucial SSD drive, with which i would like to replace the Intel SSD. What is the best and most unpainful way of doing that? I would like to keep all the apps and everything i have as now.

Thank you.
Click to expand...

Time Machine backup your old SSD then make a Lion USB stick and proceed to use that and restore your data to the new SSD. Don't trust those disk cloning techniques, they usually miss something out.

Good choice on the M4 btw :)
 
negativzero said:
Time Machine backup your old SSD then make a Lion USB stick and proceed to use that and restore your data to the new SSD. Don't trust those disk cloning techniques, they usually miss something out.

Good choice on the M4 btw :)
Click to expand...

Actually, I've usually found Carbon Copy Cloner to be more reliable than Time Machine. Time Machine is a great backup tool, but there's more work involved with moving your data that way, because doing the clone directly to the new drive doesn't then require that the data be moved a second time.

jW
 
Mal said:
Actually, I've usually found Carbon Copy Cloner to be more reliable than Time Machine. Time Machine is a great backup tool, but there's more work involved with moving your data that way, because doing the clone directly to the new drive doesn't then require that the data be moved a second time.

jW
Click to expand...

i 2nd that, ever since i tried CCC the first time ive never turned TimeMachine ON since.
 
iisforiphone said:
i 2nd that, ever since i tried CCC the first time ive never turned TimeMachine ON since.
Click to expand...

I should clarify, btw. I find Time Machine better for regular backups, because it doesn't require any interaction to run (well, on a laptop, you do have to plug in the drive, but that's it). I find Carbon Copy Cloner better for secondary backups (which Time Machine doesn't do) and for hard drive switches like the OP's situation.

jW
 
Mal said:
I should clarify, btw. I find Time Machine better for regular backups, because it doesn't require any interaction to run (well, on a laptop, you do have to plug in the drive, but that's it). I find Carbon Copy Cloner better for secondary backups (which Time Machine doesn't do) and for hard drive switches like the OP's situation.

jW
Click to expand...

ya if you needed time machine type backups like wanting to restore your computer to a certain date then yes Time Machine can be better, if all you want is a bootable backup thats matches your current state than CCC is better IMHO
 
Mal said:
Actually, I've usually found Carbon Copy Cloner to be more reliable than Time Machine. Time Machine is a great backup tool, but there's more work involved with moving your data that way, because doing the clone directly to the new drive doesn't then require that the data be moved a second time.

jW
Click to expand...

+ 10000000 for carbon copy cloner. I just replaced an 80gb drive with a 1.5tb drive in a coworkers white macbook. Put the new drive in an external enclosure, cloned the main, then physically swapped. Came up first boot, verified in disk utility that the extra space was available, and all was good.
 
Okay thanks guys for the replies. I just have one question, how do i get about doing this? I decided for the carbon copy option. I have my external firewire disk on which i will now duplicate my current SSD state.

How do i go about gettin the information from the external FW disk to my new SSD once it is installed=? tnx

edit: Oh i have a partition with ML installed on my regular drive which is in optibay that i can boot into, can i use this as an advantage somehow?

EDIT 2: Oh ok i sorted it out :). I just booted from my FW drive and then cloned it into the new SSD. Tnx again.
 
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