Good things to know for upgrading my 2010 mbp hdd

[J Griz 757]

Firstly, I know there are a million articles on what to do, but I like being able to ask questions and recieve numerous tips from people, and their experiences doing this.

So I will upgrading my 2010 i5 mbp, and buying from Macsales. I will be upgrading from my 320 gb 5400 rpm hdd, to a Western Digital Scorpio Black 500 gb 7200 rpm hdd.

I have a 1tb Western Digital external hd, with my Macbook's current time machine backed up on it that I assume will be transfered over to my new hd.

So now, to the thread title, what all would you reccomend I do before switching out the drives?

Please dont verbally destroy me too much if this subject has been beaten to death, I'm only a casual lurker here guys and gals

 

[simsaladimbamba]

I would either clone the drive or reinstall Mac OS X, but not restore from a TM backup, as it takes too long.
Use CarbonCopyCloner or SuperDuper to make a 1:1 copy.
MacBook, MacBook Pro: Replacing the Hard Disk Drive, transferring data to the new HDD

 

[johnnj]

I've always just made a Time Machine backup before taking the old drive out and then booted off the system install disk and did a full TM restore.

I screw around with my drive configurations semi-a lot and it's never seemed to take that long and when the machine boots after the restore it's exactly the way it was on your old drive.

I think it's much simpler doing it this way than making a disk image or reinstalling from scratch. I would only do the scratch if I was transferring to a different machine, and even then you can do a post install TM restore. Again, the machine will be the way it was before after the restore.

As far as "too long", it never seemed that way to me. When I'd start my restore it usually says about an hour but it finishes in about 45 minutes. I only have about 143 gigs of disk usage and my TM drive is a 7200rpm via FW800, so I guess the experience could be different for people with a ton of data and slower restore (like from a Time Capsule).

 

[J Griz 757]

I've always just made a Time Machine backup before taking the old drive out and then booted off the system install disk and did a full TM restore.

I screw around with my drive configurations semi-a lot and it's never seemed to take that long and when the machine boots after the restore it's exactly the way it was on your old drive.

I think it's much simpler doing it this way than making a disk image or reinstalling from scratch. I would only do the scratch if I was transferring to a different machine, and even then you can do a post install TM restore. Again, the machine will be the way it was before after the restore.

As far as "too long", it never seemed that way to me. When I'd start my restore it usually says about an hour but it finishes in about 45 minutes. I only have about 143 gigs of disk usage and my TM drive is a 7200rpm via FW800, so I guess the experience could be different for people with a ton of data and slower restore (like from a Time Capsule).

So if I backed my hdd up with time machine, I could then take out my old hdd, install the new one, and with the install disk select an option to restore from my time machine?

Did I understand you right?

 

[J Griz 757]

I would either clone the drive or reinstall Mac OS X, but not restore from a TM backup, as it takes too long.
Use CarbonCopyCloner or SuperDuper to make a 1:1 copy.
MacBook, MacBook Pro: Replacing the Hard Disk Drive, transferring data to the new HDD

Thanks for that link, I needed it dumbed down a bit more.

I'm pretty tech savvy but only switched fully to Mac in January.

 

[simsaladimbamba]

So if I backed my hdd up with time machine, I could then take out my old hdd, install the new one, and with the install disk select an option to restore from my time machine?

Did I understand you right?

Yes, you can do that, but it will take longer (three times and more) than simply cloning the internal HDD's content to the new HDD in a USB enclosure and then switching the HDDs, as only one copying process is involved, instead of two (TM backup - slow, TM restore - slow).

 

[J Griz 757]

Yes, you can do that, but it will take longer (three times and more) than simply cloning the internal HDD's content to the new HDD in a USB enclosure and then switching the HDDs, as only one copying process is involved, instead of two (TM backup - slow, TM restore - slow).

Yea I understand it will take alot longer, but how long roughly would you say it would take? A few hours a most right?

 

[simsaladimbamba]

Yea I understand it will take alot longer, but how long roughly would you say it would take? A few hours a most right?

It depends on the amount of data you have.
If you have 250GB of data on the internal HDD and clone it via a USB enclosure to the new HDD, then the cloning process should take 140 to 220 minutes.
Using Time Machine to backup 250GB of data will take longer, maybe around 300 minutes. Then restoring from the TM backup will take another 300 minutes or more.
Therefore cloning of 250GB will take around three hours, backing up via TM and restoring from a TM will take around ten hours, if not more.
And there is no advantage to going via TM, even a disadvantage, as you can't boot from a TM backup, but you can from a clone.

If you have the extra 10 quid and can get your hands on a USB enclosure for 2.5" S-ATA HDDs, spend it, as you can use the old (now internal) HDD for storing purposes or even backing up (one should have at least two copies of important information - I have two copies of my personal editing footage and of my photographs, in case one HDD fails).