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So I am planning to upgrade my Macbook pro's harddrive to a SSD. I don't know much Mac OS X tools, so I was wondering if anyone could let me know how I can copy my entire harddrive (including OS) to my SSD.

I have a MacBook 2011 and am using OS X Lion.

joelseph
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Strawberry
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2 Answers2

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CarbonCopyCloner or SuperDuper. Both are amazing programs, and will do a bit-for-bit copy to your new HD. CCC is free, while SuperDuper costs about $30. There are very few differences between the two, so I'd go with CarbonCopyCloner for being free.

chrismanderson
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  • Are either of these awesome tools updated to copy the recovery HD yet? – bmike Sep 16 '11 at 16:25
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    CCC doesn't copy the recovery partition. However, Apple provided a tool that lets you recreate that partition. Lion Recovery Disk Assistant. Just make sure to create a separate partition for the Recovery Assistant, otherwise it will wipe out the whole disk. – chrismanderson Sep 16 '11 at 16:32
  • Carbon Copy Cloner now includes the recovery partition by default. See http://help.bombich.com/kb/troubleshooting/will-ccc-clone-the-recovery-hd-partition-on-lion. – Lri Jun 14 '13 at 16:35
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I just connect the new SSD using a cheap USB to SATA adapter, install Lion on the new drive, then boot from that new drive (hold the option key while booting to select an alternate boot source).

It asks if I want to migrate data from another drive, and I say yes and point it at the internal drive. Everything migrates over, you get to test things on the external drive to be sure all is good, then power off and make the exchange.

The benefit is this gets you a Lion recovery HD since some of the imaging tools don't yet perform that operation and only move the main partition data to the SSD.

bmike
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  • You can re-run the Lion installer once the SSD is on the internal bus to get a recovery HD created if you choose to go the imaging route - Not needing another tool and reducing the instals seems nicer to me. – bmike Sep 16 '11 at 16:30