Sidebar Sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

New SSD arriving best way to transfer OS across

Knuckleheadz

Knuckleheadz

macrumors member
Original poster
Sep 3, 2007
88
2
United Kingodm
Hi All,

I have an iMac 27" late 2012 model with an external thunderbolt SSD drive running my OS and one other partition.

I want to migrate this to a newer larger SSD that should be with me on Saturday.

What is the best way to complete this migration (retaining both the Recovery Partition, Mac OSX and the other partiton?)

My thought was:

  1. Attach new SSD as an external drive (I have a USB 3.0 caddy available)
  2. Boot in to Mac OS X
  3. Use CCC to make a clone of the old SSD to the new SSD

Will this retain the recovery partition? Or do I need to install OS X on to the new SSD (which will create this partition) then overwrite Macintosh HD and the second partition with my CCC backup?

Many thanks
Jon
 
Knuckleheadz said:
Hi All,

I have an iMac 27" late 2012 model with an external thunderbolt SSD drive running my OS and one other partition.

I want to migrate this to a newer larger SSD that should be with me on Saturday.

What is the best way to complete this migration (retaining both the Recovery Partition, Mac OSX and the other partiton?)

My thought was:

  1. Attach new SSD as an external drive (I have a USB 3.0 caddy available)
  2. Boot in to Mac OS X
  3. Use CCC to make a clone of the old SSD to the new SSD

Will this retain the recovery partition? Or do I need to install OS X on to the new SSD (which will create this partition) then overwrite Macintosh HD and the second partition with my CCC backup?

Many thanks
Jon
Click to expand...

-Use CCC but do not clone anything, you need to go to 'Disk Center' in the menu bar and copy across the recovery partition to the SSD.
-Once you have copied the recovery partition you need to boot from the SSD and 'restore' the recovery you just made via CCC to the SSD (A clean iMac specific install with all relevant SSD modifications)
-Create a time machine backup of your current drive
-Boot the new SSD installation and use migration assistant to restore your time machine backup

Done

It is perfectly possible to just clone using CCC but in my experience across a wide range of Apple computers the clone from HD to SSD is not as smooth as a fresh install to a SSD. Perhaps OS X recognises the SSD vs HD during installation and certain kexts, OS characteristics differ. For me it's peace of mind and 'clean'.
 
Thanks All Taken,

My current boot disk is also SSD - maybe I am being super picky but my current SSD is a Crucial M4 but I have bought a Samsung 840 Pro that I wanted to use as my boot drive as its quicker...

Do you think the difference in speed is too small between these two SSD's to start messing about with a migration/ clone?

Thanks
 
You won't be able to close when you're running off the drive you're trying to clone. U can boot into the OSX install utility if you have a boot cd/key.
Otherwise a time machine backup and restore should do the trick.

Oh must just ad when cloning it helps if the partitions are the same size.
 
Knuckleheadz said:
What is the best way to complete this migration (retaining both the Recovery Partition, Mac OSX and the other partiton?)

My thought was:

  1. Attach new SSD as an external drive (I have a USB 3.0 caddy available)
  2. Boot in to Mac OS X
  3. Use CCC to make a clone of the old SSD to the new SSD

Will this retain the recovery partition? Or do I need to install OS X on to the new SSD (which will create this partition) then overwrite Macintosh HD and the second partition with my CCC backup?
Click to expand...

The steps you listed will work perfectly. CCC will put a Recovery HD partition on the new SSD, then move the OS and all data over all on its own. Just clone old SSD > new SSD and you are done.

You do not need to install the OS at all, the clone will handle it.

The only thing you did not address is formatting the new SSD. Once you have everything connected and you boot from the old SSD, start Disk Utility and format the new SSD to one Mac OS Extended partition. The quit Disk Util and run the CCC clone operation.
 
Ok after ages and tons of reading I have finally decided to got for a Lacie Ragged 120 SSD as external boot drive for my Imac late 2012 which has got no fusion drive.

I see from the above that is preferable to do a clean istall expecially if the original disk was a HDD and moving towards a SSD so I wonder if my work flow below is correct

1. Format the new SSD to Mac OS Extended partition if not already
2. Download OSX10.9 installer and run it choosing as Instal destination the SSD
3. Test the SSD drive is bootable with out problems
4. Select the SSD as primary boot drive and leave the HDD for back up / Storage

Question: If I do a clean install will this create also the recovery partion on the SSD?

THanks in adavance for your support
 
trustever said:
I see from the above that is preferable to do a clean istall expecially if the original disk was a HDD and moving towards a SSD.
Click to expand...

That is debatable. There are adherents to the "always do a clean install" camp here to be sure, but IMO if your current system is running fine there is no need to waste your time with a clean install. Just clone your current disk to the new disk.

The fact you are going from HDD to SSD is not relevant at all to this decision.

That said, if you are intent on doing a clean install, your workflow looks fine.

Question: If I do a clean install will this create also the recovery partion on the SSD?
Click to expand...

Yes it will.
 
I usually just boot to the recovery partition and use disk utility to clone the Mavericks drive then set it as startup in preferences.
 
Weaselboy said:
The fact you are going from HDD to SSD is not relevant at all to this decision.
Click to expand...

Weaselboy, thanks for getting back to my question so quickly, if you say that the passage from HDD to SSD is not going to impact the OS what else instead could be messed doing a clone?

Data like photo, MP3 and similar I am not worried as they already sit on a different partition of the HDD that will not be touched but there has to be something otherwise no one would have mentioned earlier on the tread.

Regarding the clone if there are no massive downsides I would gladly go for the below at least:

- I will not have to re download the installer which will take ages given my poor internet connection

- I will not have to re-instal all the additional software I have

Last question, this mac was originally shipped with 10.8, I did a separate partition to install 10.9 (keeping the partition with 10.8 just in case) but now I wonder in the recovery disk, that supposing I do the clone, I have to clone as well, will there be the software to recover to 10.8 or has this been updated to 10.9? Any way to tell for certain?

Thanks and Regards
 
trustever said:
Weaselboy, thanks for getting back to my question so quickly, if you say that the passage from HDD to SSD is not going to impact the OS what else instead could be messed doing a clone?
Click to expand...

If you are having no issues now, nothing will be messed up by cloning.

Last question, this mac was originally shipped with 10.8, I did a separate partition to install 10.9 (keeping the partition with 10.8 just in case) but now I wonder in the recovery disk, that supposing I do the clone, I have to clone as well, will there be the software to recover to 10.8 or has this been updated to 10.9? Any way to tell for certain?
Click to expand...

Enter the command below in Terminal and will be able to see a 650MB hidden partition that is the recovery partition. There is one specific to each OS X version and it will come over to the SSD with the clone if you use Disk Util or CCC.

Code: 
diskutil list
 
Thanks for the suggestion, I have run the diskutil list and the result is below

/dev/disk0
#: TYPE NAME SIZE IDENTIFIER
0: GUID_partition_scheme *1.0 TB disk0
1: EFI EFI 209.7 MB disk0s1
2: Apple_HFS SUN 120.0 GB disk0s2
3: Apple_Boot Recovery HD 650.0 MB disk0s3
4: Apple_HFS SATURN 775.6 GB disk0s4
5: Apple_HFS NEPTUNE 103.5 GB disk0s5

I have only one partition for the recovery, any way to find out?

Second also if I do a clone I will not be able to clone the entire HDD but just the Neptune which is my start up disk, should I partition the SSD in two parts and in the first small of 700 MB I would clone the recovery and in the rest I would clone the neptune?
 
trustever said:
Thanks for the suggestion, I have run the diskutil list and the result is below

/dev/disk0
#: TYPE NAME SIZE IDENTIFIER
0: GUID_partition_scheme *1.0 TB disk0
1: EFI EFI 209.7 MB disk0s1
2: Apple_HFS SUN 120.0 GB disk0s2
3: Apple_Boot Recovery HD 650.0 MB disk0s3
4: Apple_HFS SATURN 775.6 GB disk0s4
5: Apple_HFS NEPTUNE 103.5 GB disk0s5

I have only one partition for the recovery, any way to find out?

Second also if I do a clone I will not be able to clone the entire HDD but just the Neptune which is my start up disk, should I partition the SSD in two parts and in the first small of 700 MB I would clone the recovery and in the rest I would clone the neptune?
Click to expand...

Let' back up a bit. Which partition are you operating off of now that you want to clone to the new SSD... and is that the Mavs partition (Saturn or Neptune)?

Do a command-r boot to recovery and tell me what you see. Normally with two OS X versions installed it would look like this with the most recently made recovery partition numbered like in this screenshot.

OzonERb.png


You don't need to make the recovery partition. Just erase the SSD as one, large partition and the clone process will bring over the recovery partition.
 
I just use CCC to clone Macintosh HD over to the new disk, and that's it. I don't bother booting from recovery partitions or anything like that, I just run CCC from my normal OS X installation.

CCC takes care of everything including copying the recovery partition, and from my experience the cloned disk works perfectly. I have done this dozens of times and never had a single issue.
 
thanks I have started the computer holding the option key and all I could find was just one recovery partition, just to make sure what it was I have started it and it did show mountain lion so that was it.

I remember that somewhere there was a tutorial to recreate the recovery partition if you did not have one, so now I just need to search for it, hopefully my new SSD will be here before the weekend so I will have a chance to play with it.

thanks again for your support!
 
Followed the tutorial at the link below

http://www.techrepublic.com/article/how-to-restore-an-os-x-recovery-partition/

and now I have my working recovery partition updated to 10.9.2!

My SSD has been shipped today so I hope by Friday to be able to get it and proceed with the clone, in the mean time I have downloaded the maveriks installer but I doubt I will reinstall from scratch if a clone will work just fine.

Thanks everyone for your directions and for sharing your experience.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back