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markgodley

macrumors regular
Original poster
Mar 25, 2009
135
0
I'm looking to upgrade my MacBook harddrive to a larger ssd drive.

My plan is to remove the current harddrive and install the new one, then install a fresh copy of OS X on the new drive.

Once done connect the old harddrive via a external case via usb to the Mac and use migrate assistant to transfer everything over

Questions:
1) is this the best way
2) can it be done via usb from my old drive or does it need to be via a firewire one?

Thanks,
 
I'm looking to upgrade my MacBook harddrive to a larger ssd drive.

My plan is to remove the current harddrive and install the new one, then install a fresh copy of OS X on the new drive.

Once done connect the old harddrive via a external case via usb to the Mac and use migrate assistant to transfer everything over

Questions:
1) is this the best way
2) can it be done via usb from my old drive or does it need to be via a firewire one?

Thanks,

USB is fine. I recommend installing the OS to the SSD prior to installing it, however.
 
Why prior out of curiosity?

Put the SSD into the USB case. Connect to computer. Install and test over USB, including a trial boot from the SSD while it's in the USB case. If something goes wrong anywhere up to this point, your computer is untouched and unmodified. All the changes have been done to an external USB drive.

After confirming it all works from the USB case, only then would you open up the computer and swap drives.

It's about doing the simplest steps first. Installing and testing in an external case is simpler than installing a bare SSD into the computer and hoping it works.

This assumes you have a USB case that fits the SSD. Since you said you were going to put the old HD into an external case, this seems likely to be true, given the info you've provided.
 
Put the SSD into the USB case. Connect to computer. Install and test over USB, including a trial boot from the SSD while it's in the USB case. If something goes wrong anywhere up to this point, your computer is untouched and unmodified. All the changes have been done to an external USB drive.

After confirming it all works from the USB case, only then would you open up the computer and swap drives.

It's about doing the simplest steps first. Installing and testing in an external case is simpler than installing a bare SSD into the computer and hoping it works.

This assumes you have a USB case that fits the SSD. Since you said you were going to put the old HD into an external case, this seems likely to be true, given the info you've provided.
Many thanks I'll do it this way
 
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