Upgrading to SSD with smaller capacity, help!

[kb1200]

Just put 8gb of RAM in my mid 2009 17" macbook pro but I also have a 120gb SSD I want to put in. The problem is that my existing hard drive is 500gb and almost full. Here is what I want to do: Put the OS, applications, email, etc on the SSD. Put all the music, videos, pictures, etc on the 500gb. I already have an optical bay adapter for the 500gb hard drive. I also have a 500gb hard drive (almost full) with time machine and just did a backup on my hard drive.

How should I do this? I was going to use a cloning program to clone the OS on the SSD, but how do I get my music and things on the 500gb once I wipe it? Won't time machine just want to restore the 500gb drive contents on to the SSD?

Basically I want to keep the 500gb hard drive as it is, but remove the OS from it so the computer doesn't boot with that hard drive.

Thanks for the help.

 

[kb1200]

Anyone?

 

[amit715]

i used carbon copy cloner a few months ago and it works perfectly .i def recommend using that

 

[kb1200]

Can't use that, it won't tell me the size of things I am transferring. I've decided to do a clean instal on the SSD and use migration assistant. On my current hard drive finder says it is using 470gb, but migration assistant says I am only using 431gb. Anyone know why this would be?

 

[Weaselboy]

Can't use that, it won't tell me the size of things I am transferring. I've decided to do a clean instal on the SSD and use migration assistant. On my current hard drive finder says it is using 470gb, but migration assistant says I am only using 431gb. Anyone know why this would be?

Because there are quite a few cache files and swap files that Migration Assistant does not move over.