Best way to setup new hard drive

[grahamperrin]

… 10.9.5.

1) put new SSD in external enclosure connect to mbp and use disk util to format to Mac OS Extended (Journaled)

2) still in disk util use the "restore" tab and select the current HDD as the source and the new SSD as target.

3) install new SSD in mbp, boot normally.

This should give me an exact clone of the current HDD onto the new SSD correct? …

Disk Utility 13 (517) in OS X 10.9.5 here allows me to select (drop) as a source a partition but not its disk.

If you find the same limitation, and if you use the OS X startup as the source for restore, then there'll be no Recovery OS on the destination – but I shouldn't worry about that; (in case of emergency) you have another computer and (before too long) there'll be installation of Yosemite.

 

[Weaselboy]

Disk Utility 13 (517) in OS X 10.9.5 here allows me to select (drop) as a source a partition but not its disk.

If you find the same limitation, and if you use the OS X startup as the source for restore, then there'll be no Recovery OS on the destination – but I shouldn't worry about that; (in case of emergency) you have another computer and (before too long) there'll be installation of Yosemite.

You do not need to select the disk. If you select Macintosh HD as the source and there is a Recovery HD partition on the drive it will bring it over to the new drive.

 

[grahamperrin]

Oh cool, thanks. Good to know.

(It's a long time since I personally did a Disk Utility restore of HFS Plus. These days I'm more familiar with ZFS.)

 

[Weaselboy]

Oh cool, thanks. Good to know.

(It's a long time since I personally did a Disk Utility restore of HFS Plus. These days I'm more familiar with ZFS.)

Thread jack incoming....

You using ZFS in OS X? I have not really studied up much on it other than to read it is supposed to be more "robust". How does it improve on HFS+?

 

[grahamperrin]

Off-topic …

In as few words as possible – with an emphasis (to distinguish ZFS from HFS Plus):

• verifiable integrity of data.

OpenZFS on OS X – the speech bubble icon links to a forum, I'm there occasionally. For me, for this implementation of ZFS for OS X, the incompatibility with Spotlight is pretty much a showstopper; YMMV.

No such problem with Spotlight with ZEVO on Mountain Lion. There's much more to the ZFS caboodle, on various platforms, and I was a prolific poster in the ZEVO support forum (not publicly unofficially archived), but I'll resist the urge to say more here

----

 

[jbsmithmac]

Ok I think this is probably the best route for me...

1) put new SSD in external enclosure connect to mbp and use disk util to format to Mac OS Extended (Journaled)

2) still in disk util use the "restore" tab and select the current HDD as the source and the new SSD as target.

3) install new SSD in mbp, boot normally.


This should give me an exact clone of the current HDD onto the new SSD correct? No difference should be noticed to the end user (it's my wife's machine).

Just an update....

Well this would have worked if I wanted to wait 8+ hours for it to copy from the internal HDD to the external USB connected SSD.

So I installed OS X 10.9 via a thumb drive, then restored from a NAS time machine backup. This all took 2 hours. Much better than 8 it originally said it would take.

Now I need a nice enclosure for the old HDD...recommendations?

 

[Weaselboy]

Now I need a nice enclosure for the old HDD...recommendations?

This one from Inatatech has UASP support and is popular with users here.

 

[jbsmithmac]

This one from Inatatech has UASP support and is popular with users here.

Thanks.