Can old hard drives be cloned to new SSDs?

[joey3]

MacRumors MacBook Pro SSD Forum,

I own an Apple MacBook Pro 2.8GHz Intel Core 2 Duo (17-inch DDR3) MC226LL/A Mid-2009/SATA II, and my son owns an Apple MacBook Pro 2.2GHz Intel Quad-Core i7 (15-inch DDR3) Late-2011**/SATA III.

We are both in search of 256GB SSD drives but were wondering if our present 750GB and 500GB traditional hard drives can be cloned, with software, to new SSD drives? Does anyone have any experience of what the advantages, or indeed, what the disadvantages of such a cloning would be? Would cloning our old hard drives to new SSD drives, slow down the SSD drives? Is the best option simply to enclose the old hard drives in a disk casing, so that they can be connected externally to USB Ports?

Any experience or thoughts on this subject would be greatly appreciated. Many thanks!

joey3 (joetune@gmail.com)

 

[dukebound85]

look into the app carbon copy cloner

 

[GGJstudios]

We are both in search of 256GB SSD drives but were wondering if our present 750GB and 500GB traditional hard drives can be cloned, with software, to new SSD drives?

Yes, you can clone any HD or SSD to another HD or SSD using Carbon Copy Cloner.

 

[Medic278]

Depending which SSD you buy it may come with software to migrate your data. Carbon Copy is another great option for cloning your HD. I personally did a clean install of Lion on my new SSD and then brought my files over using a USB enclosure to migrate my data, I now use my old 500 GB HDD as an external HDD so it worked out great. You can buy a USB enclosure at many big box electronics retailer and they are pretty cheap.

 

[joey3]

Can old hard drives be cloned to new SSDs?

Thank you all for these very insightful replies to my post. They've been most helpful and, indeed, I'm very grateful!

joey3

 

[Medic278]

Thank you all for these very insightful replies to my post. They've been most helpful and, indeed, I'm very grateful!

joey3

Your welcome, thank you for being polite and taking the time to show your appreciation. How did your install go and which SSD did you end up with?