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douglh

macrumors member
Original poster
Nov 10, 2008
31
0
My new Macbook is only 1 week old, so there is not much (or any) useless crap that I don't want or need. The Macbook came with a 160Gb hard drive.

Prior to switching to Mac I was a 4-year Linux user. I purchased a new 320Gb drive for my Linux-PC laptop just 2 months ago. I took that drive out and would like to put it in my new Macbook. I would prefer to transfer data from old to new drive rather than starting fresh all over again.

So I assume Time Machine is the way to go, and/or use Migration Assistant. My question is how Time Machine works, exactly. In Linux when you do a backup using Partimage, it backs up byte-for-byte, meaning that if you back up a 100Gb drive, it will restore that same volume size regardless of how much bigger the restore drive is. Put another way, if you buy a 150Gb drive and restore, you will end up with a 100Gb drive with no space left over. I want to avoid this!

So how will I backup and restore, and at the end have a 320Gb drive, rather than another 160Gb drive? Will I have to install the OS on the new drive before I restore? And yes, I do have an external hard drive I can back up to, though I haven't used it yet.

TIA
 
Get yourself an external USB enclosure for a 2.5" SATA notebook drive and pop your 320 in.

Download SuperDuper and use the free version to make a bootable image onto the external 320. Reboot from the external drive to test if you like (system preferences, system section, startup disk).

Swap the drives out and you are done.

Time machine is extra work for no benefit.
 
.... and the amount of disc used on your 160GB will match the disc used on the 320GB leaving the balance free. Example: the 160GB drive shows 148.89 GB, 97.23 GB Free. The 320GB will be 297.77 GB, 246.11 Free. -GDF
 
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