Buying new MBP, drive swap question

[aikomhoch]

OK, here's my plan:
I'm buying a new MBP and I will get it with the standard 750GB @5400 HDD. I am going to order a 128GB SSD (probably crucial) and an optibay kit. I will use the SSD for system and apps, and the standard drive (now in the optibay slot) for files.

My question is, what's the best way to transfer and set up my system and data.

My thought is to do all of the hardware work, then reinstall the system software from whatever disc comes with the MPB and then migrate my old data to the new machine. After I migrate the old data I can move my user folder to the standard drive and off of the SSD, leaving behind just the system and apps.

I'd be most grateful for some thoughts on this plan.

 

[heisenberg123]

OK, here's my plan:
I'm buying a new MBP and I will get it with the standard 750GB @5400 HDD. I am going to order a 128GB SSD (probably crucial) and an optibay kit. I will use the SSD for system and apps, and the standard drive (now in the optibay slot) for files.

My question is, what's the best way to transfer and set up my system and data.

My thought is to do all of the hardware work, then reinstall the system software from whatever disc comes with the MPB and then migrate my old data to the new machine. After I migrate the old data I can move my user folder to the standard drive and off of the SSD, leaving behind just the system and apps.

I'd be most grateful for some thoughts on this plan.

Your new MBP won't come with a disc you could use carbon copy cloner to clone the 750gb to the ssd

 

[aikomhoch]

Your new MBP won't come with a disc you could use carbon copy cloner to clone the 750gb to the ssd

So if I put the SSD in the standard drive bay and move the standard drive to the optibay, before I've done ccc, will the machine boot? Or do I have to install the SSD into the optibay then run ccc, then swap the drives and reboot from the SSD?

Hope that makes sense.

 

[heisenberg123]

So if I put the SSD in the standard drive bay and move the standard drive to the optibay, before I've done ccc, will the machine boot? Or do I have to install the SSD into the optibay then run ccc, then swap the drives and reboot from the SSD?

Hope that makes sense.

in theory it should i will let the more expienced members correct me, you most likely will have to hold option during the start up to pick the drive to boot from it might look in the standard bay by default

if you have an external enclosure it would make life easier to clone the 750 from the standard bay to the ssd in the external enclosure, than test boot from the ssd in the external enclosure, once you see it works format the 750 move it to the optibay than put the ssd in the standard bay

 

[aikomhoch]

So continuing to think this through, I should be able to get started on the new machine before I even have possession of the SSD. In other words, I can migrate from the old machine to the new one, then when I get the SSD I can do the ccc. Make sense?

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in theory it should i will let the more expienced members correct me, you most likely will have to hold option during the start up to pick the drive to boot from it might look in the standard bay by default

if you have an external enclosure it would make life easier to clone the 750 from the standard bay to the ssd in the external enclosure, than test boot from the ssd in the external enclosure, once you see it works format the 750 move it to the optibay than put the ssd in the standard bay

Unfortunately, no enclosure, unless the included external dvd bay that comes with the optibay (a place to put the superdrive) would work.

 

[heisenberg123]

So continuing to think this through, I should be able to get started on the new machine before I even have possession of the SSD. In other words, I can migrate from the old machine to the new one, then when I get the SSD I can do the ccc. Make sense?

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Unfortunately, no enclosure, unless the included external dvd bay that comes with the optibay (a place to put the superdrive) would work.

well it might work(the external optical drive enclosure) and yes to your other part you can use the 750 In the meanwhile and clone as is to the ssd when you get it

 

[aikomhoch]

well it might work(the external optical drive enclosure) and yes to your other part you can use the 750 In the meanwhile and clone as is to the ssd when you get it

Great, thanks. Only thing left to decide is if I want to void the warranty or not.

 

[MaxBurn]

I just did this and being new to macs I just chose the easiest path which might not be the fastest path. I took out the drive it came with and replaced it with my SSD which was an intel 120GB G2 I had around.

I used lion internet recovery to partition the drive and had the internet recovery do its thing to reload the OS. This did show options during the OOBE setup for moving your info from another mac, maybe you could use that?

I then added bootcamp and win7, nothing special about that experience.

Later on when I got my drive bay adapter to mount the HDD in the optical bay I used disk utility to make the drive one large exFAT partition so both lion and win7 bootcamp can see and use the drive.

It all worked really well, mildly impressed.

 

[heisenberg123]

Great, thanks. Only thing left to decide is if I want to void the warranty or not.

if you dont do anything obvious when you take out the optical drive like strip a screw or damage anything you won't void your warranty if you put the optical drive back before bring to apple for service

 

[aikomhoch]

if you dont do anything obvious when you take out the optical drive like strip a screw or damage anything you won't void your warranty if you put the optical drive back before bring to apple for service

True. But what if the 750 fails? If I move that back to the original bay, take out the SSD and put back the optical drive, won't they know the 750 isn't set as the system drive? Or I guess I could just have them reformat it as they fix it, or replace it all together. Must be diligent with backups, then! Ugh, I hate these decisions. I paid for the three years of AppleCare.