replacing bad SSD drive with new one; are these the right steps?

[malch]

Hi there,
I always get a bit nervous when it comes to installing/replacing drives, but I think I'll be fine with the physical installation of a new Accelsior SSD drive (the one I got a couple weeks ago caused some problems; the OWC re-seller here promptly sent me a new one) but would someone mind confirming (or correcting) the steps I need to take to get up and running again, once I get this new drive in place?
Here's what I think I need to do:
1. use Carbon Copy Cloner to make bootable external fw backup of problem SSD drive (I've been able to do this)
2. take this problem Accelsior SSD drive out of Mac Pro PCIe slot, and install new Accelsior SSD drive in same slot
3. start up Mac Pro, and (not sure of the step here; will I be prompted to format this new SSD drive first?) install Mountain Lion (I've got the Mountain Lion installer on a second external fw drive) on new SSD
4. use Migration Assistant to copy whole of cloned drive from external fw drive to new SSD drive

Is that it, or am I missing something, or is there a better way?
Thanks for any tips,
malch

 

[DanielCoffey]

There is indeed a simpler way.

You don't need to use Migration Assistant. You just need to clone back from your old SSD to the new SSD.

Shut down the Mac Pro. Put the new SSD in an internal sled and leave the old one there. Use Carbon Copy Cloner to clone the old drive to the new drive. CCC will report that there will not be a recovery partition on the new drive and ask if you want one. Say yes. Once both the recovery partition and the complete clone are done, shut down the Mac Pro and pull out the old drive. You can swap the sleds over so the new drive is in the same place as the old one if you like.

That's it.

 

[malch]

Daniel,
Thank you so much... this will be simpler by far, and luckily, I happen to have one PCIe slot still free.
I'll go ahead with it today (I've been procrastinating).
Regards,
malch