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SSD install / ghostimage

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Beliblis

macrumors regular
Original poster
Dec 31, 2011
241
11
Hi,

I'm thinking about spicing up my old 2008 Macbook (2.4 core duo, OS 10.7) a little bit and buy a SSD drive.
I've got a way of attaching the SSD to my usb port. In order to make the swap as smooth as possible:

Can I simply do a straight copy from my internal drive to the SSD (via ghost image or similar), and then put it inside my laptop? I mean: would the system still boot? Would all my software licenses & e-mails be OK?
Or would that not be a recommended way of doing it, i.e. is there a possibility of Mac OS 'complaining'' that it's found a new drive, of a different size?
 
Use CarbonCopyCloner or SuperDuper to make a 1:1 copy from the internal HDD to the now external, properly formatted*, SSD.

MacBook, MacBook Pro: Replacing the Hard Disk Drive, transferring data to the new HDD

the guide includes:
  • 0. Identify your MacBook or MacBook Pro
  • 1. Getting a new HDD
  • 2. Guides to replace the internal HDD with a newer one
  • 3. Transferring data from the old HDD to the new HDD
  • 4. Using the optical disk drive (ODD) slot for placing an SSD or HDD inside the MB/P (OPTIBAY)
​


But with SSDs it is often recommended to do a clean install and then migrate your data and applications via the Setup or Migration Assistant.

Migration Assistant / Setup Assistant information:
 
simsaladimbamba said:
But with SSDs it is often recommended to do a clean install and then migrate your data and applications via the Setup or Migration Assistant.
Click to expand...

Thanks for your reply. Very interesting links, awesome!
Is there any reason why a clean install + migration is better than a copy via CarbonCopyCloner? Quite a difference in effort & time it seems...
I mean: would it result in better performance? Or is it just "safer"?
 
Beliblis said:
Thanks for your reply. Very interesting links, awesome!
Is there any reason why a clean install + migration is better than a copy via CarbonCopyCloner? Quite a difference in effort & time it seems...
I mean: would it result in better performance? Or is it just "safer"?
Click to expand...

I don't remember right now, when I got my SSDs, I just did a clean install, as it only took an hour or two including all applications, as I have my application and OS installers on an external HDD, which makes installing from it a breeze compared to putting in one DVD after another (I have a lot of them).


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Maybe have a look at Advanced Search to find similar threads or threads with explanations about why:
​
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Got my SSD today and decided to go for Carbon Copy Cloner to to clone my system drive over.

My system drive is 160gb (90GB used)
My SSD is 128gb.

The copy process is running smoothly since 10 minutes. Just a thought though: Isn't a 128gb drive too small to "clone" a 160gb drive onto?

Or does it only clone the data thats on the source drive? In which case my next question would be: does this mean the clone will be a defragmented version of the original?
 
As you only have 90 GB on a 160 GB HDD, 90 GB will be cloned to the 120 GB SSD, thus you don't need a 160 GB SSD, otherwise CCC would have warned you.
As for defragmentation, one would think so, but HFS+ takes care of fragmentisation in the background anyway.
 
Carbon Copy Cloner tries to do a Block Level copy of the source to the target. This just treats the drives as a list of 1's and 0's, and the copy is just as fragmented as the original.

If it can't do that (I forget the exact reasons why) then it will do a File-Level copy. In that case, it will defragment as a side effect of the copy process.
 
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