iMac SSD OSX Install Options

[_Refurbished_]

After doing some research, it looks like I have a few option to get OSX back onto the computer following an SSD upgrade. From what I'm following, I can use the OSX Internet Recovery system to install the default OSX version that came with the iMac originally, or I can create a bootable USB install disk. I don't think I have the original install disk that came with the computer.

My question is should I use the internet recovery system and then upgrade to El Capitan? Or is it smarter to create a USB boot disk? I'd rather not create the boot disk if I don't need to, I'm perfectly content sitting through two installations of OSX. Would one have an advantage over another? Thanks in advance.

 

[keysofanxiety]

Few additional options:

1) If you have a TM backup, you can restore that directly to your SSD.

2) If you can access your old HDD through a USB SATA dock, you can boot into the recovery OS there & reinstall a fresh copy of the OS version which was on your old HDD.

 

[hwojtek]

Why not use CCC or SuperDuper! and just clone the existing installation intact to the SSD?

 

[DJLC]

I don't think there's any real benefit either way, aside from the fact that creating an ElCap boot drive would give you a faster install.

That said, you could easily also do this if you have access to the old drive: boot into the Internet Recovery system, bring up a Terminal, and use asr to clone the drive. Much easier way of doing it IMO and it will successfully clone your recovery partition, too.