Prep for SSD upgrade with Time Machine, Boot Camp, and Parallels?

[smeg36]

I snagged the 120GB Intel SSD yesterday, and am not in the process of prepping for the upgrade. I'm wondering exactly how to best do it in my situation. I've found similar threads, but none that specifically answered my questions. Can someone help with the following:

1) What's the best way to install Snow Leopard? I have a Time Machine backup. Should I install it fresh, then use the Migration Assistant to transfer all my data. Or is it better to boot into the install disk, then just restore from my backup, which will also install OSX?

2) I transferred a bunch of movies, audiobook, and photos from my internal HD to an external HD to make sure I don't fill the SSD too full, and degrade it's speed. I had around 160GB on my HD, and now it's down to 40GB. So when I restore from Time Machine will it restore from my most recent backup, which is substantially smaller than the backup I made yesterday? Or should I reformat the backup drive to make sure I only restore the 40GB of data?

3) I currently have Vista running on a Boot Camp partition, but also have Parallels running Vista off the Boot Camp partition. I rarely ever boot into Vista though, and usually use Parallels. So with a SSD would it be better/faster for the drive if I just use Parallels, and don't bother creating a Boot Camp partition? If I do that, is there any way to restore with my WinClone image into Parallels, or should I just install from scratch?

 

[Vanarak19]

1) What's the best way to install Snow Leopard? I have a Time Machine backup. Should I install it fresh, then use the Migration Assistant to transfer all my data. Or is it better to boot into the install disk, then just restore from my backup, which will also install OSX?

2) I transferred a bunch of movies, audiobook, and photos from my internal HD to an external HD to make sure I don't fill the SSD too full, and degrade it's speed. I had around 160GB on my HD, and now it's down to 40GB. So when I restore from Time Machine will it restore from my most recent backup, which is substantially smaller than the backup I made yesterday? Or should I reformat the backup drive to make sure I only restore the 40GB of data?

3) I currently have Vista running on a Boot Camp partition, but also have Parallels running Vista off the Boot Camp partition. I rarely ever boot into Vista though, and usually use Parallels. So with a SSD would it be better/faster for the drive if I just use Parallels, and don't bother creating a Boot Camp partition? If I do that, is there any way to restore with my WinClone image into Parallels, or should I just install from scratch?

1. Id do a fresh install, but you can play with the backup first.

2. It will restore the most recent (smallest in your case) backup. If you moved files off the drive, and ran a backup, those files are no longer available in the latest backup folder.

3. I am 100% amazed at the speed of the SSD/virtual machine now. before, it was a pain to boot one up, but now, it seems like two separate machines.
http://forum.parallels.com/showthread.php?t=8766


Happy Mac'ing.

 

[millerb7]

I snagged the 120GB Intel SSD yesterday, and am not in the process of prepping for the upgrade. I'm wondering exactly how to best do it in my situation. I've found similar threads, but none that specifically answered my questions. Can someone help with the following:

1) What's the best way to install Snow Leopard? I have a Time Machine backup. Should I install it fresh, then use the Migration Assistant to transfer all my data. Or is it better to boot into the install disk, then just restore from my backup, which will also install OSX?

2) I transferred a bunch of movies, audiobook, and photos from my internal HD to an external HD to make sure I don't fill the SSD too full, and degrade it's speed. I had around 160GB on my HD, and now it's down to 40GB. So when I restore from Time Machine will it restore from my most recent backup, which is substantially smaller than the backup I made yesterday? Or should I reformat the backup drive to make sure I only restore the 40GB of data?

3) I currently have Vista running on a Boot Camp partition, but also have Parallels running Vista off the Boot Camp partition. I rarely ever boot into Vista though, and usually use Parallels. So with a SSD would it be better/faster for the drive if I just use Parallels, and don't bother creating a Boot Camp partition? If I do that, is there any way to restore with my WinClone image into Parallels, or should I just install from scratch?

1. DEFINITELY do a fresh install. You can use migration assistant or carbon copy cloner (CCC [I like this better]) to move some important stuff over. But start with a fresh install.

2. What SSD did you get? Degradation shouldn't be a huge issue with a good SSD, but yea, you don't want it 100%. EDIT: just read you got the intel... not bad. Slower than the rest but works almost always. When you restore you get to choose from which date.

3. I wouldn't bother with the bootcamp, I'm not. My SSD is on it's way as well, and I'm only using parallels for the virtual machine. The SSD (along with enough ram; THIS IS THE IMPORTANT PART... THE MOST IMPORTANT PART) will run the VM just fine. I'm upgrading to 6GB ram to run VM's... I have 2GB now and it struggles, badly.

 

[smeg36]

1. DEFINITELY do a fresh install. You can use migration assistant or carbon copy cloner (CCC [I like this better]) to move some important stuff over. But start with a fresh install.

What exactly is the difference between a fresh install, then Migration Assistant versus restoring from Time Machine? I know there's a difference, but am nit sure why one would be better than the other. Also, are there any setting that need to be changed after installing the ssd? I know there is in Windows, but don't know about OSX. Thanks for the help.

 

[smeg36]

Well, I got my SSD today and installed it with no problems. I decided to just restore from Time Machine since I was pressed for time at work and really just wanted to get it running. So how can I tell if I'm getting the full benefits of the speed with a restore? I have Xbench, but have read that it's not really a reliable way to measure a SSD's performance. I just want to be sure I'm getting the all I should without reinstalling OSX from scratch.

 

[Stvwndr219]

I snagged the 120GB Intel SSD yesterday, and am not in the process of prepping for the upgrade. I'm wondering exactly how to best do it in my situation. I've found similar threads, but none that specifically answered my questions. Can someone help with the following:

1) What's the best way to install Snow Leopard? I have a Time Machine backup. Should I install it fresh, then use the Migration Assistant to transfer all my data. Or is it better to boot into the install disk, then just restore from my backup, which will also install OSX?

2) I transferred a bunch of movies, audiobook, and photos from my internal HD to an external HD to make sure I don't fill the SSD too full, and degrade it's speed. I had around 160GB on my HD, and now it's down to 40GB. So when I restore from Time Machine will it restore from my most recent backup, which is substantially smaller than the backup I made yesterday? Or should I reformat the backup drive to make sure I only restore the 40GB of data?

3) I currently have Vista running on a Boot Camp partition, but also have Parallels running Vista off the Boot Camp partition. I rarely ever boot into Vista though, and usually use Parallels. So with a SSD would it be better/faster for the drive if I just use Parallels, and don't bother creating a Boot Camp partition? If I do that, is there any way to restore with my WinClone image into Parallels, or should I just install from scratch?

1) If you want to keep everything as it was, why not just use CCC (Carbon Copy Cloner)? Just get an external holder, pop it in and copy over (given that you've sized the hard drive right).

2) SSD's degradation comes from lots of read and writes - because it has no spinning parts, there isn't the worry of degrading it by filling it up too much (as is the case with traditional hard drives). In general, the SSD should long outlive its next upgrade before it starts to get significantly degraded unless you are doing an abnormal amount of reading/writing.

3) As is the case with all upgrades, you have to consider how much work it will be to do it from scratch vs. just copying it over. I know there are lots of little tweaks that I do to every one of my computers that would just be a major pain the the rear to have to go through one by one and do again. If you don't use anything graphical in boot camp (sounds like parallels works just fine for you and you don't), then just using parallels is fine. Frees some space up on your hard drive too! 🙂

 

[smeg36]

Here are the Xbench results from the drive when I just restored everything through Time Machine instead of reinstalling the OS then using Migration Assistant to transfer all my info. Do these results look ok for the 120GB Intel?