Cloning a drive that's too big for the target

[taomation]

Hi Guys,

I bought a new SSD drive for my Macbook Pro. It's only 120 gig because I don't plan on having any document data on, just OS and Apps, mail and downloads.

The problem that I have encountered is that there isn't enough room on the drive when I try to use CCC and only transfer what I think that I need. I went online and did some research of people using Mac Airs that had small drives, as well as looking at the size of my OS and Applications folder. And it seems that I should have more than enough space, but obviously do not.

Then I checked my user and system library and found that combined they are about 115 gigs. The question is what do I need and what can I lose from my library and/or is there something I have missed that will make this possible. Also, I have a back up of my drive that I could delete data on and then clone, if only selecting folders during the cloning process is prohibitive. Thanks in advance. Cheers...Ian

 

[kevink2]

In your case, it may be worth it to just install everything fresh, including desired apps, and then just copy your documents over from your old drive (in an external USB enclosure).

Do you do email on your mac? What program? If you use email via web browser or an IMAP server, it would be easier to transfer it that way. But copying over your entire home account (while using a different administrator account so not overwriting active files) may be easier.

When I went SSD last year, I just went with a 512GB drive so I wouldn't have these issues. Though everything would have fit in a 256GB drive (and still would). The issue this caused me was Office had to be reactivated via the telephone since it detected the hard drive changing under itself, and thought it was a copy.

 

[ValSalva]

When I went SSD last year, I just went with a 512GB drive so I wouldn't have these issues. Though everything would have fit in a 256GB drive (and still would). The issue this caused me was Office had to be reactivated via the telephone since it detected the hard drive changing under itself, and thought it was a copy.

Ugh, product activation

I did something similar with Adobe CS. I forgot to deactivate it before making a big system change. What a PITA! Make sure you deactivate and/or deauthorize apps of this ilk before changing hard drives.

 

[justperry]

Hi Guys,

I bought a new SSD drive for my Macbook Pro. It's only 120 gig because I don't plan on having any document data on, just OS and Apps, mail and downloads.

The problem that I have encountered is that there isn't enough room on the drive when I try to use CCC and only transfer what I think that I need. I went online and did some research of people using Mac Airs that had small drives, as well as looking at the size of my OS and Applications folder. And it seems that I should have more than enough space, but obviously do not.

Then I checked my user and system library and found that combined they are about 115 gigs. The question is what do I need and what can I lose from my library and/or is there something I have missed that will make this possible. Also, I have a back up of my drive that I could delete data on and then clone, if only selecting folders during the cloning process is prohibitive. Thanks in advance. Cheers...Ian

There is plenty you can do.

But, *WARNING*, if you mess up your system I am not responsible, many files listed below are safe to delete but you should read carefully.
Normally I don't give this advise to anyone, but you seem to have problems with the size of your SSD so here it goes.

1. If you don't need dictionaries delete the contents of /Library/Dictionaries, saves a GB or so.

2. If you don't need Help files delete the contents of /Library/Documentation

3. Again Help files but now the ones inside your Applications, if you don't need them you can delete the Help Folders inside Applications, I will tell you in a moment how but do not delete any other folder than "Help" Folders, sometimes you will see "Helpers", do not delete these.
Download EasyFind, tick all the items as in the screenshot below, search for Help inside the Application Folder, *WARNING*, if you have Adobe installed inside the Application Folder move it to thhe root level first, You could break Adobe if you delete Help Folders inside Adobe.
Help files in certain Apps can be fairly big, sometimes they are in each and every language.

4. **WARNING*, this can potentially break Applications, I do not really recommend this!
Deleting Language files, Again, use Easyfind, search for .lproj inside the Application Folder, use the screenshot as below, If your language is English select all non English files to delete, be aware that English included English.lproj-el.lproj,en.lproj,US.lproj,GB.lproj,AU.lproj, amongst others.
I do it this way, BUT, there are programs which do this for you and are safer to use, those will almost sure not include Adobe which again is a problem here again.

5. Deleting Pagefiles and sleep images, these are almost sure to be excluded in CCC, find out yourself if this is the case.

6. Empty your Caches, maybe this is quite big.

7. Delete or do not copy movie files, these are almost always the biggest files on your Mac.

 

[Weaselboy]

Then I checked my user and system library and found that combined they are about 115 gigs.

You won't find much to delete in your user library. I have quite a few apps installed and my ~/Library folder is 3GB. It sounds like you have quite a bit of data in your user folders somewhere though.

What kinds of personal data do you have there taking all that space? I would look in Documents, Pictures, and Music and Movies for large files.

You can open CCC and uncheck just those folders and do the clone to get the machine up and running, then move over what you have room for afterwards.

 

[taomation]

This is the thing. There's isn't anything in music, pictures etc. I have some things in application support for logic, but I don't think that it's that much. I'll check. Thanks for the reply. Much appreciated...Ian

 

[Weaselboy]

This is the thing. There's isn't anything in music, pictures etc. I have some things in application support for logic, but I don't think that it's that much. I'll check. Thanks for the reply. Much appreciated...Ian

You might try out the free app OmniDiskSweeper. It will give you a graphical image of space used and help pinpoint where the disk hog is.

 

[Bear]

Hi Guys,

I bought a new SSD drive for my Macbook Pro. It's only 120 gig because I don't plan on having any document data on, just OS and Apps, mail and downloads.
...

Some applications use a lot of space. Are you sure you want all of the applications on the new disk? Are you sure 120GB was really big enough? You said downloads? How much space will your downloads require?

A fresh OS X install is under 10 gigs. (No iPhoto, iMovie or Garageband installed.) How big are your applications? Note that some applications install files to other locations in addition to /Applications.

In your case, it may be worth it to just install everything fresh, including desired apps, and then just copy your documents over from your old drive (in an external USB enclosure).
...

Very definitely the way to go. This way one doesn't have applications that aren't needed on there. It also means that you don't break something from removing files that shouldn't have been removed. Something that might not be discovered for a while.