Moving OS and apps to SSD

[dfielder]

Hi all...I've looked pretty thoroughly through the forums and haven't seen something that (completely) answers my question, so I figured I'd ask.

I'm THIS close to putting an SSD in my optical bay, and using it for the OS and applications, and will leave all of my data on my HDD. The problem is that my HDD is 600Gb that's about 400Gb full, and I'm looking at a 128 or even 256Gb SSD. Since the SSD is smaller than the HDD, I can't just do a full recovery to the SSD then move data files to the HDD.

My question is, what is the right way to migrate all of the OS files and applications to a different drive, while leaving everything else on the HDD?

Thanks!
Doug

 

[aimbdd]

Ehh... Reinstalling all of it onto the ssd :/

 

[miata]

I haven't used the migration utility in a while, but I thought there was a way to make fairly fine granular selections.

Use something like OmniDiskSweeper (free) to see where the big ticket items are -- and then exclude them from the migration. I have about 135 GB on my 320 GB HDD, but 60 GB of that are VMware Fusion Images, 12 GB is iPhoto related, 9 GB is Mail, 8 GB is iTunes music (ripped form CDs).

 

[dfielder]

Ehh... Reinstalling all of it onto the ssd :/

I don't mind reinstalling to the SSD, but then I'd like to be able to remove the unnecessary OS files from the HDD. Is that easily done?

Also, is it just as simple as moving the apps from one drive to another, or are there other files that need to be moved as well?

Thanks!

 

[aimbdd]

I don't mind reinstalling to the SSD, but then I'd like to be able to remove the unnecessary OS files from the HDD. Is that easily done?

Also, is it just as simple as moving the apps from one drive to another, or are there other files that need to be moved as well?

Thanks!

Some apps have other files as well. So it might not be that simple. Its not to hard, but if you are trying to save the other "stuff" for those apps.. it could be a hard task.