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Upgrading Macbook Aluminum HD to SSD...please help!

A

abs9986

macrumors member
Original poster
Feb 23, 2009
42
0
I am finally upgrading my late 2008 macbook aluminum to a crucial solid state drive (128gb with transfer kit for $119 from New Egg).

Can someone simply list the steps for updating the new drive and how I can get Lion and my old files on to it. I've seen a few threads, but I wasn't sure if it was different for me since the crucial came with the transfer kit. How does carbon copy cloner work exactly? Also, what are the implications for installing lion. I do not have the snow leopard disc.

Lastly, I've upgraded from leopard to SL to Lion, so maybe for once it would be good to fresh install an OS. What would be the process for doing that.

Thanks,
 
abs9986 said:
How does carbon copy cloner work exactly? Also, what are the implications for installing lion. I do not have the snow leopard disc.
Click to expand...
If you buy an external enclosure for your new SSD, you can connect it as an external drive, then use Carbon Copy Cloner to make a bootable clone of your HDD onto your SSD, including the Lion Recovery Partition. Then, simply swap the drives and boot up. Your old HDD is now an external drive which can be used for backups or for additional storage.
 
1- Did you order the drive yet? I just looked at the "data transfer kit" and it's a cable to connect a bare drive to a usb port. That's a one time use sort of thing and far less useful than an external enclosure.
2- Are you replacing the existing hdd? 128gb seems small, but maybe you don't create a lot of data files or have music and video.
3- http://mashable.com/2011/07/20/lion-clean-install-guide/ will show you how to do a clean install on a new hdd from a usb thumb drive. When I did it the creation of the bootable drive failed at the end, but it turned out to have completed the creation and it all went fine. Just a glitch.
4- You can install Lion to the new ssd and then migrate all of your programs and files during or after the installation. That gives you some of the benefits of a clean install without having to install everything from scratch. For a truly clean install you need to install all of your programs. Boy, is that tedious. But I think it's worth it to purge things you no longer use.

I have a late 2008 unibody which I just upgraded to a 128gb ssd in the hdd slot and replaced my dvd drive with the 500 gb hdd that was in my machine. My dvd drive is in an external enclosure now, currently ripping Heat via Handbrake. I did a full backup to an external drive before I started working. I did the hardware upgrade, replacing the hdd with the ssd and installing the data doubler from OWC with my old hdd. (I also upgraded to 8gb ram while I was at it). I then installed Lion from the thumb drive to the ssd, along with Parallels and Windows 7, and then started re-installing my software. I kept the hdd intact so that, if needed, I could boot the computer from that drive into Snow Leopard. Once I'm satisfied that I have everything installed and working correctly I'll update the external backup, reformat the internal hdd and copy the data only from the backup.

On my wife's late 2007 white Macbook I replaced the 250gb hdd with a 750, installed Lion from the thumb drive, then migrated her data and programs from the old hdd which I had put in the OWC supplied enclosure. Over the USB it took 15 or 16 hours to complete. Annoyingly long, but no intervention from her necessary. She wouldn't have had the patience to do what I'm doing.
 
interested macbook late 08 unibody

hi guys, can anyone recommend which ssd works best in the late 08 unibody macbook? Supposedly a few have issues because of the clash between the firmware controller and the nvidia controller.... im looking at an intel 330 180 gb ssd or a crucial m4 256.... id prefer to go with the intel as its cheaper! Thanks for any assistance.
 
The Intel 330 is a 6gb/s drive. The late '08 Macbook has SATA II which has a 3gb/s transfer rate. For reasons that I don't understand, a 6gb/s drive will run in that machine at the SATA I speed of 1.5gb/s. A 3gb/s drive such as the Intel 320 series (which is what I got for my late '08 MacBook and is running great) will run at the full speed. I do not know what the real world speed difference would be. Getting a 3gb/s drive means it will never run faster than that, even in a new machine. A 6gb/s machine will run at 1/4 of its rated speed in your current computer, but at its full speed in your next one. Something to consider for a fairly expensive drive upgrade. I decided that my next machine will probably come with a larger ssd and the 120 gb that I put into the '08 for OS and programs will end up in an enclosure, anyway.
 
Controller

Berobe, that I can answer, the 320 has an intel controller, which plays well with the nvidia chipset used in the macbookof that time, sandforce controllers, which are used in the 330 have the switching problem with nvidia. A 6 gb ssd is backwards comparable normally. From what I can find from research, my machine needs ssd without sandforce, and I think then all is ok, but I have seen a few comments in other places that say people have had issues with crucial and owc. Here in aust we don't get the wide choices of product, and the 320 isn't avail anymore. I'd love the intel 180 gb asits cheap, but if it isn't likely to work obviously it's a waste of time and money. Tks for your advice though.
 
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