Samsung 840 Pro - Cloning questions?

[MacCrank]

Hi guys,

I have just purchased a Samsung 512gb 840 Pro for my late 2011 MacBook Pro. Just upgraded the RAM from 4gb to 16gb, next was the HDD to a super fast SSD.

Now... I don't have the SATA transfer cable, but I do have an external G-Drive 7200 500gb external hard drive.

Questions:

1. Can I use my external hard drive to clone my existing HDD onto to then transfer that to my new SSD or will it not be the same cloning direct from the HDD to the SSD? If so how?

2. I have bootcamp with 60gb partition ATM but I want to create a new partition with 70gb (giving 10gb or more room). Can I make the partition greater without loosing everything on the windows side? How do I go about copying everything on the windows side if possible?

Thanks in advance!

 

[Fishrrman]

[[ Can I use my external hard drive to clone my existing HDD onto to then transfer that to my new SSD or will it not be the same cloning direct from the HDD to the SSD? ]]

That should work just fine.

Can't answer the BootCamp question -- never used it.

 

[Weaselboy]

1. Yep... that will work just fine. You can just Disk Utility or CCC to do the clone so it brings the recovery partition along with the clone. Other utilities like Super Duper do not copy over the recovery partition. Just format the SSD to one partition for this clone.

2. Take a look at WinClone. Clone you Windows Bootcamp install to an external. Then setup OS X like in step one. Then run Bootcamp Assistant to create a new larger BC partition on the SSD and afterward use WinClone to bring your Windows install from the external to the new BC partition on the SSD.

 

[MacCrank]

Thanks guys.

'SuperDuper' is currently copying my mac stuff as I type.

However for the Windows side Winclone 2.2 (free version) is too old for my 2011 it is saying, not sure about their paid version. But I think Winclone will just copy the entire partition which is not what I want as I want to create a larger partition this time.

However… Im thinking its best to to just use a Windows clone on the actual Windows side and just create a fresh new partition once the Mac side is sorted, creating a larger partition and then installing Windows as normal then once in the windows side just reinstalling back to my original set up around 30GB.

What App is best to use here for Windows side alone?

 

[MacCrank]

Regarding Samsungs Magican software. What is this for and do I need it? If so do I have to download it for both windows and mac side?

 

[ecschwarz]

Regarding Samsungs Magican software. What is this for and do I need it? If so do I have to download it for both windows and mac side?

The Magician software adds some compression schemes and other tools to make the drive feel even faster under Windows. It also gives you details about how the drive is operating and how it's interacting with your system. You don't need it for the drive to work properly, and there isn't an OS X version even available.

The other download on the site is the firmware update - the ISO versions are the same for OS X and Windows - it's actually a Linux-wrapped DOS tool that you need to burn to a DVD and boot from. You can see what version of the firmware you're running by going to System Information, SATA/SATA Express, and looking at the Revision item.