Need help with Copying my OSX/apps to new SSD, booting from SSD

[badfish628]

I have a 2009 MB Pro and am planning to do the optical drive swap out for a new 64GB SSD.

What I'd like to do ideally is copy my OS X 10.8 installation, along with installed applications, to the SSD and be able to boot from the SSD (instead of the internal HDD which is slow). My main concern is the speed of the OS, I'd like to be able to work a bit faster with my applications and the OS. All other data would remain living on my internal HDD.

How would I go about doing this? I'm pretty savvy with this stuff, but I'm a bit stuck on this one.

 

[robvas]

CarbonCopyCloner or SuperDuper

 

[badfish628]

Doesn't seem that easy though- aren't there weird directory issues I need to be conscious of?

 

[MikesGravity]

No, it's that easy.

 

[auto180sx]

Being a windows guy, (Brand new Mac guy now) I always recommend a fresh install of a OS on new harddrives. If you have your files backed up, the fresh install should help speed things up too.

 

[MikesGravity]

What I do is make a time machine backup. Then fresh install. Plug in the TM drive and drag and drop.

 

[el-John-o]

Being a windows guy, (Brand new Mac guy now) I always recommend a fresh install of a OS on new harddrives. If you have your files backed up, the fresh install should help speed things up too.

Windows doesn't behave very well when being copied to a new hard drive or a new computer. OSX operates MUCH differently than Windows, and is less 'nailed down' to the hardware it's presently on. It doesn't have any problems being copied over.

In fact, when I bought my MBP I immediately put two SSD's in it in a RAID, and put the original hard drive in an enclosure. I used Disk Utility (built into Mac OS X) to copy the original hard drives data onto the new SSD's. Was up and running on mountain lion like nothing every happened!

 

[auto180sx]

Windows doesn't behave very well when being copied to a new hard drive or a new computer. OSX operates MUCH differently than Windows, and is less 'nailed down' to the hardware it's presently on. It doesn't have any problems being copied over.

In fact, when I bought my MBP I immediately put two SSD's in it in a RAID, and put the original hard drive in an enclosure. I used Disk Utility (built into Mac OS X) to copy the original hard drives data onto the new SSD's. Was up and running on mountain lion like nothing every happened!

Well thats good to hear. Just got my first Mac last night and immediately upgraded the ram and to a SSD with the old HDD where the superdrive used to be. Maybe when it comes time to upgrade again I'll just copy everything over. Still have a lot to learn about these machines but I love mine so far!

 

[el-John-o]

Well thats good to hear. Just got my first Mac last night and immediately upgraded the ram and to a SSD with the old HDD where the superdrive used to be. Maybe when it comes time to upgrade again I'll just copy everything over. Still have a lot to learn about these machines but I love mine so far!

If you have an empty external drive of decent size you could always try it, just clone your hard drive over to the external, and reboot the Mac. BUT, as SOON as you hear the chime, hold down the option (alt) key. You'll get a screen pop up, and you should be able to boot just fine to your external drive.

There is also a feature in Macs that allow you to, when upgrading, copy everything over to your new Mac via FireWire. You just connect a FireWire cable to both machines. Presumably, it'll work with thunderbolt too (I assume). If the new Mac has a newer version of OSX, it will still work, it'll just change the settings on your new mac to reflect the old one (wallpaper, etc.), copy over your apps (which aren't tied down to a registry like Windows), and your files. After a little while of running, you'll sit down at your brand new Mac which will have everything right where you left it!

In fact, it can even do this from a Windows machine, though obviously with some limitations.