Upgrade Advice needed for OSX, HD, SSD, Time Machine

[Blueline111]

I apologize for the long post. I tried to be specific and clear.

Currently I have a mid-2011 iMac, 2.7 ghz i5, 1TB 7200 rpm, 4 gig RAM and an external 1TB Seagate goFlex portable drive with the Thunderbolt adapter add on which is my Time Machine backup drive. I'm using OS 10.6.8 Snow Leopard. My HD is about half full. I'm not ready to upgrade to Maverick yet since it is still a very new OS.

What is the best way to be able to use my current programs with an updated OS and a new SSD with HD as basically my storage drive and continue to use Time Machine on my external portable?

I want to add an internal SSD 256 gig (probably a Crucial M500). I have built desktops and have the skills to do this with the help of watching youtube video installs. The SSD will be my boot drive and used for several programs currently installed on my HD such as Adobe Creative Suite, Word suite, a few games, and video editing. All this is currently backed up on Time Machine.

This is where I need advice. I want to upgrade to Mountain Lion. Should I upgrade the OS on the HD first, then install the SSD? If this is the case will Time Machine be able to transfer the OS and programs I want to the SSD? or should I install the SSD then do a clean install of the new OS on it? If so, will the "new" Time machine be able to transfer the programs I want to the SSD? Would I have to do a new complete backup before the transfer with the "new" Time Machine? I no longer have some of the program disks and do not want to lose the programs.
or does it matter which way? Is one better than the other?

Or is there a better/easier way to accomplish my goal?

Thanks for your help in advance!

 

[Blueline111]

Upgrade Advice needed for OSX, HD, SSD, Time Machine

If my questions have been answered elsewhere please let me know. I'm still not sure of the best way to upgrade my system.

Does anyone know if it would be simpler to just upgrade the OS on the HD, back it up with Time Machine, create a Fusion drive, then just reinstall everything with Time Machine? The speed of a Fusion drive should not be significantly less than having a SSD and HD?

 

[yjchua95]

I apologize for the long post. I tried to be specific and clear.

Currently I have a mid-2011 iMac, 2.7 ghz i5, 1TB 7200 rpm, 4 gig RAM and an external 1TB Seagate goFlex portable drive with the Thunderbolt adapter add on which is my Time Machine backup drive. I'm using OS 10.6.8 Snow Leopard. My HD is about half full. I'm not ready to upgrade to Maverick yet since it is still a very new OS.

What is the best way to be able to use my current programs with an updated OS and a new SSD with HD as basically my storage drive and continue to use Time Machine on my external portable?

I want to add an internal SSD 256 gig (probably a Crucial M500). I have built desktops and have the skills to do this with the help of watching youtube video installs. The SSD will be my boot drive and used for several programs currently installed on my HD such as Adobe Creative Suite, Word suite, a few games, and video editing. All this is currently backed up on Time Machine.

This is where I need advice. I want to upgrade to Mountain Lion. Should I upgrade the OS on the HD first, then install the SSD? If this is the case will Time Machine be able to transfer the OS and programs I want to the SSD? or should I install the SSD then do a clean install of the new OS on it? If so, will the "new" Time machine be able to transfer the programs I want to the SSD? Would I have to do a new complete backup before the transfer with the "new" Time Machine? I no longer have some of the program disks and do not want to lose the programs.
or does it matter which way? Is one better than the other?

Or is there a better/easier way to accomplish my goal?

Thanks for your help in advance!

If you want to use Time Machine, both the 7200rpm drive and SSD have to be on the same OS, lest you apply back an older OS on your new SSD when you restore it from a Time Machine backup.

Why not Mavericks? It's free.

Perform an OS upgrade on your 7200rpm. After this, run a Time Machine backup from the 7200rpm drive to an external drive.

Then, put the SSD into the iMac and clean install Mavericks via a bootable installer (google up on how to make one with a USB stick). After that, plug in the Time Machine drive and restore.

 

[Weaselboy]

Make sure you have a current backup then install Mavericks on the current setup. Then backup again to the Time Machine (TM) disk. This will put a recovery partition from the Mavericks install on the Time Machine disk. Now install your SSD, then option key boot to the Time Machine disk. That will take you to the recovery panel on the TM disk. From that recovery panel use Disk Utility to format the SSD to Mac OS Extended. Then quit Disk Utility and click restore OS. This will move the OS, apps, and all your data fem the TM disk to the new SSD.

After you reboot, go to System Prefs and in the Startup Disk pane select the SSD as the boot drive.

The only issue you may have is some apps, notable MS Office and Adobe apps, are tied to a hardware config, so when you put them on a new drive you will need to reenter their registration info. Most other apps don't do this.

 

[Blueline111]

Upgrade Advice needed for OSX, HD, SSD, Time Machine

Thanks yjchua95. That sounds like an easy solution. I like to wait a while before going with something new, like OS Maverick, so all the bugs can be worked out and there are no surprises.

Can you clarify a couple things?:
"Then, put the SSD into the iMac and clean install Mavericks via a bootable installer (google up on how to make one with a USB stick). After that, plug in the Time Machine drive and restore."

1. I think I read somewhere that I can install Mountain Lion via a bootable installer with a USB stick. Can you confirm this?

2. Will Time Machine allocate files between the two drives? I have never used Time Machine.

3. or should I install new the OS on the 256 Gig SSD then use Time Machine to restore to the 1 TB 7200 rpm HD? This would give me ML on both drives and I would select the SSD as the boot drive. Will my programs utilize the speed of the SSD this way? or will I need to use Setup Assistant, Migration Assistant, or something else, after the restore, to make additional changes? Again I have never used Setup Assistant or Migration Assistant before.

Thanks again for your help!

----------

Thanks Weasleboy. I just read your reply. Is ML capable of doing the same thing?

 

[Weaselboy]

Thanks Weasleboy. I just read your reply. Is ML capable of doing the same thing?

Yes... it would work exactly the same.