I am going to upgrade the original 128GB ssd in my MBA 13" 2017 to a 500GB SSD. To prepare I will clone the 128GB disk to an external drive and when the upgrade is done I will reclone it back onto the new disk. Now the current 128GB disk has High Sierra 10.13.6 installed. Should or could I update to the latest or newest Mac OS before I do the update or should I do the update, do the reclone and then upgrade to the latest MAC OS. Which is the best way to go.
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SSD Upgrade + OS
- Thread starter Gerry7
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I would say it depends on what you want to do. Personally, I would not update to Big Sur yet...but that's me. What I have done, twice now, is backup the original SSD using Time Machine to external USB drive formatted to Mac OS Extended (Journaled). I make a bootable USB thumb drive of the MacOS installer for whatever version(High Sierra in your case currently). Then install the new drive, boot off the USB thumb drive of the installer I made, run disk utility, and restore from the Time Machine backup drive. Google it.. One of these days, maybe the next time I wipe this, I'll make a video of the process, as half the time, I can't remember all the details of what I did. Perhaps someone else can spell out more detail..
Personally, I would create a Time Machine backup, upgraded to Big Sur to ensure that the MacBook is running the latest bootrom, install the replacement drive, and restore using TM. The MacBook will run HS with no problem with the Big Sure bootrom.