Need Help with Cloning my 1TB HDD to a new 250GB SSD [Yosemite]

[vUndefined]

Hey all,

Been running the Developer Release of Mac OS X 10.10 Yosemite since day one now and I've really enjoyed it so far - I'm currently on the latest build which is exactly the same as the public release. Just recently I ordered a 250GB Samsung 840 EVO SSD to use in my MacBook Pro running Yosemite. I'm looking to transfer all my data from my 1TB HDD to my 250GB SSD. I have many ideas in mind, but I've got a primary one that I think might work, but I just want to be sure.

My plan is to make a Time Machine backup onto my external HDD as usual. When it's all finished, I'll swap out the HDD with the SSD internally and 'option boot' into my Yosemite Tools on my external drive (the same one I backed up to previously) from EFI. From there, I'll click to restore from a Time Machine backup and I'll simply click my Yosemite backup from earlier and have it restore onto my newly installed SSD.

EDIT: For the record, normally I'd use CCC but they don't have support for 10.10 as of yet...

Would this work out? Or would Apple have some downsizing restriction in terms of size?

Thanks!

 

[maflynn]

I would use Carbon Copy Cloner and to make an image of your drive onto the new drive. Its a lot simpler and easier imo

 

[vUndefined]

I would use Carbon Copy Cloner and to make an image of your drive onto the new drive. Its a lot simpler and easier imo

I went back to edit my post, CCC has no support for Yosemite yet.

 

[maflynn]

That's just a warning, if you have the latest version it should be fine. I'm still using the old free version and never had a problem with it.

 

[vUndefined]

That's just a warning, if you have the latest version it should be fine. I'm still using the old free version and never had a problem with it.

Hmm, I thought so - except it doesn't launch for me. Every time I try to run it, it displays that warning then opens a page and the app automatically closes. Any idea how to bypass the warning or keep it open?

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I went through and got the *old* old version of CCC, 3.4.7 I believe. It starts up just fine but I'm still worried as the last OS X this was tested with was 10.4/possibly 10.5, it will probably work but I'm not sure if this is the way to go - has anyone tried CCC with Yosemite yet?

 

[Fishrrman]

OP wrote:
[[ It starts up just fine but I'm still worried as the last OS X this was tested with was 10.4/possibly 10.5, it will probably work but I'm not sure if this is the way to go - has anyone tried CCC with Yosemite yet? ]]

My advice (may work, or may NOT work):
1. Put the NEW drive into an external enclosure or a USB3/SATA dock, initialize it.
2. Use the latest version of CCC to clone your current drive to the new one
3. Do a test boot of the clone
4. Does it work?

Depending on the results of #4 above, I would either "do the swap", or...no....