SSD upgrade plan of attack advice

[mikepro]

I'm going to be replacing my 320GB HD with a 256GB Crucial M4 in a few days. Then will move 320GB drive into DVD bay. I have a 15" 2010 MBP.

My current drive has a 40GB Bootcamp partition, the Lion Recovery partition, and then about a 280GB OSX partition. That partition is currently about 230GB full. (If there are issues cloning the drive this full, I can move my 40GB iPhoto library off before I start).

What I want to end up with is the new SSD with no bootcamp, just the Lion recovery partition. Never use bootcamp, so don't want the dedicated space for it on the SSD. I'll just use a VM when needed.

So, what's the best approach for new drive?

• Clone with Carbon Copy Cloner. (Can this preserve the Lion recovery partition but NOT bootcamp? I'm unclear on this...)
• Install SSD, do internet recovery using Command-R, but do Restore from Time Machine backup instead of fresh install (I believe this is now possible on 2010 MBP, with latest EFI update, even with a new HD install and no recovery partition)
• Fresh install Lion on SSD using Internet Recovery Command-R.

If I do a fresh install, then:

• Use Migration assistant to transfer apps/settings/files from old drive connected via USB or my latest time machine backup.

Carbon Copy Cloner certainly seems the most straightforward/fewest steps. But, is it the best way to go? And, will it create the recovery partition, but not bootcamp? (Actually, do I even need the recovery partition now that 2010's can do internet recovery? Or can I just create it later?) Should I free up more space on my drive before I start, since it currently has 230GB, and the SSD is only 256?


Once the SSD is installed and all my stuff restored, my plan is to:
- Change boot disk in system preferences to new SSD (do this on first startup)
- Run Repair permissions (do on first start up)
- Remove DVD and install old disk in optibay.
- Transfer my ~90GB iTunes library to the old drive, so I will end up with plenty of space on the SSD.
- Should I turn off sudden motion sensor, or do I keep that since I'm putting the old drive
- I guess current practice is to disable the hibernate or deep sleep write RAM function. I kind of like that security though, how bad on the SSD is it to leave that? I have 8GB ram.
- Probably will not enable TRIM


I'm just really confused by all the different methods, and which is best to end up with just the Lion recovery partition (if I even need that), no bootcamp, and a stable OS load. I really want to have all my ducks in a row, because once I start, I'll only have my iPad to browse if anything goes wrong, and that's a tad painful. Thanks to all who share their advice/experience!

 

[Mal]

Carbon Copy Cloner will first prompt you to copy the Recovery Partition, then transfer the data for you. It's very simple and straightforward. Just make sure you've downloaded the latest version before you start.

jW

 

[Donka]

I'm not the same as you but some bits are similar. I upgraded to an SSD on Saturday but had a 50Gb Bootcamp partition which I never used. The first thing I did was use Bootcamp Admin tool to uninstall this partition and free up the space back to the OSX partition.
I then did the enable Trim hack and also disabled the Sleep image setting via terminal and then removed the 8GB Sleep file.
I then did a repair permissions on the OSX drive and rebooted. Now I took a time machine backup and then rebooted using the recovery option.
I hooked up the SSD via USB and started Disk Utility and partitioned the SSD drive. Now I picked the restore tab and cloned the OSX drive by selecting that as source and the SSD as the destination.
Once this was complete I swapped the drives over and all worked fine. This method also preserved the recovery partition so no need for any third party cloning tool.
If you are planning on installing a fresh copy of Lion then I would just take your time machine backup and then install the SSD drive and boot using recovery and partition the SSD and then start an Internet install of Lion. No need to clone. You can then use Time Machine to set up your Mac as it was previously. I personally decided to enable trim & disable the sleep image prior to taking my Time Machine backup of the original drive so the SSD would have these settings enabled upon first boot.

 

[mikepro]

Well, last night I used CCC to make an image of my current drive onto an external drive. It copied over the restore partition, ignored bootcamp, so no problems there. Seems like the easiest thing to do will be to just do that again, but use the SSD as the target. SSD comes tomorrow!

I also converted my boot camp into a parallels VM. I thought I could use Acronis to image my boot camp partition, in case I ever want to boot camp again, but it doesn't work. Meh, I'm not going to bother trying to back it up, since I have the VM.


So, my current plan is tonight I'll delete the bootcamp partition on my main drive and clean some crap off it to get it to about 200GB full or less. When the SSD comes, just use CCC to clone drive, and then install it.

I'm also thinking of putting the SSD in the optibay, rather than the original HD. Since I have a 2010 MBP, I don't have SATA III, so I figure it will just save me the extra step of moving the current HD. Since it's all SATA II, seems like no downside to that right?

One less step, plus if I ever have to take the MBP in for service, I'll just pull the SSD out of the optibay, and the original disk will still be installed in it's default spot.

 

[Mal]

I'm also thinking of putting the SSD in the optibay, rather than the original HD. Since I have a 2010 MBP, I don't have SATA III, so I figure it will just save me the extra step of moving the current HD. Since it's all SATA II, seems like no downside to that right?

EDIT: My information was incorrect, it seems.

jW

 

[mikepro]

One big downside: You cannot permanently set the Optibay as your boot source. Since I'm assuming the SSD will be your boot drive (what good would it be otherwise?), that will definitely be an annoyance at best. You can hold option and boot from it when you need to, but you cannot set it as the permanent boot source, it will forget after you restart.

jW

Ah, did not know that limitation. Definitely a deal breaker. SSD into the main bay then, and old drive into Optibay. Thanks for letting me know!

 

[riptideMBP]

One big downside: You cannot permanently set the Optibay as your boot source. Since I'm assuming the SSD will be your boot drive (what good would it be otherwise?), that will definitely be an annoyance at best. You can hold option and boot from it when you need to, but you cannot set it as the permanent boot source, it will forget after you restart.

jW

Interesting, my optibay contains my SSD which Is my boot drive.

Also, I used winclone to duplicate my bootcamp partition when I upgraded from a 500GB to 1TB hard drive last week.

BTW you cant install windows from an external dvd drive, so you'll either need to use winclone or put the optical drive back in if you want to dual boot.

 

[latestmonkey]

there are some posts around here about cloning being bad.

I just upgraded to an ssd by cloning and it was easy as can be. Plus, no messing around reinstalling stuff (except dropbox needed a password and MS office needed the key again) and my computer picked up where it left off. But blazingly fast.

I can't believe I didn't know about the SSD benefits sooner!

Why do you need to delete the bootcamp partition? You can always just leave it there in case you ever decide you need to boot from it again, no matter how unlikely it is. And if you ever run out of space on your HDD, you can delete it then. Just clean up clutter on your OSX drive if you need to and then clone that to the SSD.

 

[codymac]

One big downside: You cannot permanently set the Optibay as your boot source. Since I'm assuming the SSD will be your boot drive (what good would it be otherwise?), that will definitely be an annoyance at best. You can hold option and boot from it when you need to, but you cannot set it as the permanent boot source, it will forget after you restart.

jW

No issues doing that here.

 

[Mal]

Interesting, my optibay contains my SSD which Is my boot drive.

Also, I used winclone to duplicate my bootcamp partition when I upgraded from a 500GB to 1TB hard drive last week.

BTW you cant install windows from an external dvd drive, so you'll either need to use winclone or put the optical drive back in if you want to dual boot.

No issues doing that here.

Hmm, I'd seen that mentioned many times and thought it was accepted as normal. I confess I haven't tried it. I suspect I was wrong.

jW

 

[Donka]

Keep us posted with how you get on when your drive arrives.

 

[MysteryStep]

Plan of attack

I've been reading this forum for almost two years now and it has been very informative and entertaining. This is my first contribution to the site, so be easy on me.

I switched to Mac about a year ago when I purchased an early 2011 MBP 15" 750GB (MC723LL/A) with a high res display. I just bought a SanDisk Extreme SSD 240GB to replace my 750GB HDD: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B006EKJ8UI/ref=oh_details_o00_s00_i00

I've upgraded the RAM to 8GB, which was easy. I've replaced HDD's before, so I know how to do this from a hardware standpoint. I'm just not sure how to go about moving everything (OSes, files, apps, etc.) over like I want. Ideally, I would use the SSD for the OSes and apps and move the 750GB HDD to the Optibay for storage, but I don't want to void my Applecare.

I have a 250GB boot camp partition with Windows 7 Professional that I (almost) never boot into and a 500GB OS X Lion partition. I have Parallels 6 with a VM of Boot Camp that I use much more often.

What I think I would like to do is a fresh Lion install on the SDD and Migrate all the files and apps I need (I've installed a lot of things I don't need). I would like to keep the boot camp partition and shrink it to about 40GB and then move it over to the SSD. But if that's just not possible, I would be ok with moving forward with just the Boot Camp VM (if that's possible?).

I guess my question would be: How do I go about this upgrade without losing my Windows 7 install and programs? I use various Windows programs for work, so getting rid of that is not really an option.

Any help would be much appreciated. Thanks in advance.

-MysteryStep