Large Data migration on SSD install

[fairbr0]

Hi there,
This has probably been asked many times but I could not find another thread with the data size I have, sorry in advance.

I am wanting to upgrade my iMac to an SSD as the boot drive, and use the existing HDD as the secondary. I have no problems installing the physical drive, but do with data migration.

The HDD currently has ~800GB on it. I have 2, 1TB externals, but one is a partitioned Time-machine/general external drive for my laptop, while the other is FAT and only has a usb-2 connection, and has about 600GB of stuff (general stuff and some important data backups from the iMac).

I cannot think of a way to move my data around during the install without buying another 1TB external drive, so was looking for suggestions before making another purchase.

Grateful for any suggestions you have

 

[redheeler]

You could get a USB 3 enclosure for the iMac's internal drive and transfer data after you install the SSD.

 

[fairbr0]

Thanks for the response,
I did consider this, though from my understanding I need to remove OS X from the old drive through formatting. I perhaps should have said, the new SSD will be ~250 GB so cannot move all the contents of the HDD to it(using a usb3 enclosure) and then format the HDD.
This leaves me in the same situation doesn't it, as I have nowhere to transfer the data too during formatting? Please correct me if I am completely wrong.

 

[redheeler]

Thanks for the response,
I did consider this, though from my understanding I need to remove OS X from the old drive through formatting. I perhaps should have said, the new SSD will be ~250 GB so cannot move all the contents of the HDD to it(using a usb3 enclosure) and then format the HDD.
This leaves me in the same situation doesn't it, as I have nowhere to transfer the data too during formatting? Please correct me if I am completely wrong.

You shouldn't have to format the old drive, you can just stick it in the enclosure and transfer the data you want to the SSD after performing a clean install on the SSD.

 

[IHelpId10t5]

As others have said, an external HDD adapter is a very valuable tool. The following would work great:

http://www.startech.com/HDD/Docking/eSATA-USB-Hard-Drive-Enclosure~SDOCKU33EBV

 

[matreya]

I cannot think of a way to move my data around during the install without buying another 1TB external drive, so was looking for suggestions before making another purchase.

Buying another 1TB hard drive would be the prudent thing to do, so you can move stuff off the main hard drive and reduce it's data footprint to within the size of your SSD.

Or, you could just buy a 1TB SSD