Mac SSD upgrade advice

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T_J_G

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Tim
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Right,

So I've decided to replace the HDD in my Mac with an SSD. Now I need to know the best way of doing the actual swap. From previous conversations on here it's better to install SSD then do an internet recovery to reinstall the OS, then migrate all files across. Now all my files are currently on the HDD in my Mac, so I'll put that in an enclosure and migrate my files across that way using Migration, then wipe the (now) external HD and transfer the files Iwant on it separately. I want to run LR catalog on SSD then all the files on my external.

Does that make sense?

Thanks
 
If you just have the one app (Lightroom) and all the other stuff is just the OS apps, then I would just do a fresh install of your current OS (El Capitan)??? and then do a reinstall of LR

A new SSD with a fresh OS would be better than transferring all your old stuff onto it, it will be much leaner and a tad quicker. If you are like me and keep trying out new stuff then the drive will be full of old prefs/fonts/caches/frameworks and so on.

As a matter of course I always put a fresh install of a new OS onto my Macs, I never do the software updates.
 
i added SSD just few days ago to iMac 27" i7 (2010 i think). Depending on iMac (cpu model / year) they have different HDD's in there... which one comes with their unique connections for temperature sensors. Mine had 1TB Seagate and it was using 4 pin temp sensor.
I simply lifted motherboard and used one spare SATA data connection and added SATA power splitter cable to power my SSD. So it has both now, SSD for MAC os and HDD for all other bits.

If you were to replace your drive, most likely you won't have where to connect temp sensor and your fans will keep spinning at max (so will be noisy) but there are some apps where you can regulate fan speeds tho...

Best is to start fresh install. when new empty drive is in, boot your mac (and press comman+R and keep till you gonna get to recovery screen). choose install new OS and enter wifi password (top right corner), then enter apple ID stuff and thats it... it will be downloading new fresh install for you.
 
Stick the SSD in a caddy, use Super Duper to clone your HD. Swap drives. Reboot.

But see the warning about about recent iMacs. Officially they are buried with the HD they are born with.
 
JonathanRyan said:
Stick the SSD in a caddy, use Super Duper to clone your HD. Swap drives. Reboot.

But see the warning about about recent iMacs. Officially they are buried with the HD they are born with.
Click to expand...

Not a prob as I got one of the last 2012 Mac minis. May just do that method, then wipe HD then transfer across my library.
 
JonathanRyan said:
Stick the SSD in a caddy, use Super Duper to clone your HD. Swap drives. Reboot.

But see the warning about about recent iMacs. Officially they are buried with the HD they are born with.
Click to expand...

Super Duper doesn't copy the recovery partition, it's better to clean install Internet Recovery or boot from a USB installer and then do a data migration.
 
Andy Taylor said:
Super Duper doesn't copy the recovery partition, it's better to clean install Internet Recovery or boot from a USB installer and then do a data migration.
Click to expand...

I use Carbon Copy Cloner and that can create and copy the recovery partition.
 
JonathanRyan said:
Stick the SSD in a caddy, use Super Duper to clone your HD. Swap drives. Reboot.

But see the warning about about recent iMacs. Officially they are buried with the HD they are born with.
Click to expand...

Yeah, not easy to open it which is why I decided to mount mine via one of the USB ports using a Samsung internal SSD in a UASP enclosure. The difference in performance is night and day.
 
mines a mid 2012 macbook pro 13 inch with a 500gb HDD with 317gb free to be fair, but the wifes early 2014 macbook air with a 121GB and only 20gb free is soooooo much quicker!
 
Donnie said:
mines a mid 2012 macbook pro 13 inch with a 500gb HDD with 317gb free to be fair, but the wifes early 2014 macbook air with a 121GB and only 20gb free is soooooo much quicker!
Click to expand...

If you can get an SSD in there, night and day performance. I had a old white MacBook that was transformed with a SSD
 
Intel Macs with a user-upgradeable hard drive are:
  • Macbook 13" (2006-2009). All models including aluminium unibody.
  • Macbook Pro 13"/15"/17" (2008-2012). Unibody without Retina Display.
  • Mac Pro (2006-2012). All models (up to 4 hard drives can be fitted).
Other Intel Macs can be upgraded with varying degrees of ease:
  • iMac (2006-2007) White plastic. No glass, but tricky to get the front panel off.
  • iMac (2007-2009) Aluminium front with black plastic back. Glass panel needs suckers to remove. Need to remove front panel and LCD to access drive.
  • iMac (2010-2012) Aluminium front and back, glass to edge of case. Glass panel needs suckers to remove. Need to remove LCD to access drive.
  • iMac (2012-present) Aluminium front and back, glass to edge of case. Slimline design (no optical drive). Glass panel is held on by double sided foam tape which will need to be replaced. LCD needs to be removed to access drive.
NB later iMacs have hard drives with built-in temperature sensors. This requires an adapter board or software utility to prevent the fan(s) spinning at full speed when a replacement drive is fitted.
  • Macbook Pro 15"/17" (2006-2008). Need to remove top case/keyboard to access drive (lots of screws).
  • Mac mini (2006-2009) White Plastic/Aluminium. Has to be opened with a putty knife. removal of drive requires almost complete disassembly.
  • Mac mini (2010-present) Aluminium. Easy to open, but hard drive is behind logic board which must be moved to access the drive bays. This is supposed to require a special removal tool, but can be done with a couple of screwdrivers.
Finally, some Macs with SSDs (Air, Pro with Retina Display, 12" Macbook) are also upgradeable, there are several different connectors for these drives and they're not interchangeable.
 
Andy Taylor said:
Intel Macs with a user-upgradeable hard drive are:
  • Macbook Pro 13"/15"/17" (2008-2012). Unibody without Retina Display.
Click to expand...
That'll be mine then :-)

Now, do i upgrade to a large SSD and run everything off that or a smaller one for the OS and photoshop and Capture one Pro then store photos and files on the old sata drive?
 
I should have added that some iMacs have space for an SSD as well as the hard drive, this usually requires removal of the Logic Board.
On the MacBooks with optical drives, you can get a caddy to replace the optical drive that will hold a 2.5" hard drive.
 
Donnie said:
Yep, that's what I was thinking would be my way forward.
Click to expand...
Thats exactly what I did, SSD as the boot drive, replaced DVD with caddy and stuck the hard drive in that, boots in under 10 seconds and has a lot of space for my files.
TBH there is a huge difference with a SSD installed, its like night and day.
 
NeilA1975 said:
Yeah, not easy to open it which is why I decided to mount mine via one of the USB ports using a Samsung internal SSD in a UASP enclosure. The difference in performance is night and day.
Click to expand...

Interesting. Did you go from spinning metal internal to SSD over USB? I have the hybrid drive and I assumed that performance over USB would be sluggish no matter how fast the drive on the end.
 
Scotty Pro said:
Thats exactly what I did, SSD as the boot drive, replaced DVD with caddy and stuck the hard drive in that, boots in under 10 seconds and has a lot of space for my files.
TBH there is a huge difference with a SSD installed, its like night and day.
Click to expand...
Thinking of doing that with the wife Macbook Pro 15in 2010. Already bought a small SSD off of here and was looking to put the hard drive in the optical bay, the DVD drive is never used. Was it easy? Where did you get the caddy from for the HD to fit the optical drive bay?
 
JonathanRyan said:
I have a mid 2009 MBP. Swapping the hard drive for an SSD (I left the optical in place) took me about 10 mins. As long as you have a torx bit it is dead easy.

It looks like the 2010 is exactly the same - https://www.ifixit.com/Guide/MacBook+Pro+13-Inch+Unibody+Mid+2010+Hard+Drive+Replacement/4305

Actually swapping the optical drive would be about another 10 mins ;)
Click to expand...
Thanks for the link, Jonathan but thats a 13in model, not sure if the 15in would be much different.
 
My Mac mini does not have an optical drive so can't replace that, you can get a dual HD caddy but means taking the whole thing apart, so I'm replacing the current HDD with the SSD and then use current HDD as an external drive with all my photos on.
 
JonathanRyan said:
Interesting. Did you go from spinning metal internal to SSD over USB? I have the hybrid drive and I assumed that performance over USB would be sluggish no matter how fast the drive on the end.
Click to expand...

I switched my boot drive from the internal '10k rpm HDD to an external SSD which uses the USB 3.0 connection. I did this by first cloning the original HDD to the SSD..
Once completed I then formatted the original HDD, made another boot clone from the SSD to the HDD in a partition and hid it - thats my back should anything go wrong in the future.
I now have a 900 GB partition on the original HDD where I can store stuff, plus about 180 GB of free space on the SSD drive for photo editing etc.
This works for me as I didn't really want to take any chances opening the mac up and certainly didn't want to pay anyone for doing it either. The beauty of this is I can swap the drive out any time I like for a larger one if I really needed to - the cost of that upgrade will literally be the price of a new SSD
Below shows the set up and speeds.
The drive is mounted to the rear of the mac using Velcro tape -this keeps it well out of the way and will prevent someone from unplugging it!
This is such a simple upgrade, took about half an hour to set up from scratch. Couldn't be happier.

DSC04555 by Neil Almond, on Flickr

Screen Shot 2016-04-12 at 13.00.18 by Neil Almond, on Flickr
 
NeilA1975 said:
I switched my boot drive from the internal '10k rpm HDD to an external SSD which uses the USB 3.0 connection. I did this by first cloning the original HDD to the SSD..
Once completed I then formatted the original HDD, made another boot clone from the SSD to the HDD in a partition and hid it - thats my back should anything go wrong in the future.
I now have a 900 GB partition on the original HDD where I can store stuff, plus about 180 GB of free space on the SSD drive for photo editing etc.
This works for me as I didn't really want to take any chances opening the mac up and certainly didn't want to pay anyone for doing it either. The beauty of this is I can swap the drive out any time I like for a larger one if I really needed to - the cost of that upgrade will literally be the price of a new SSD
Below shows the set up and speeds.
The drive is mounted to the rear of the mac using Velcro tape -this keeps it well out of the way and will prevent someone from unplugging it!
This is such a simple upgrade, took about half an hour to set up from scratch. Couldn't be happier.

DSC04555 by Neil Almond, on Flickr

Screen Shot 2016-04-12 at 13.00.18 by Neil Almond, on Flickr
Click to expand...
I think you've just scored out one of the negatives of buying a new iMac. Damn you! [emoji1]
 
Ian W said:
I think you've just scored out one of the negatives of buying a new iMac. Damn you! [emoji1]
Click to expand...

Lol!

Note, in order to get those speeds you'll need USB 3.0 and a UASP enclousure for your SSD.
I paid about 15 quid for the Inateck and 70 quid for the Samsung SSD. Very affordable upgrade.
 
jakeblu said:
Thinking of doing that with the wife Macbook Pro 15in 2010. Already bought a small SSD off of here and was looking to put the hard drive in the optical bay, the DVD drive is never used. Was it easy? Where did you get the caddy from for the HD to fit the optical drive bay?
Click to expand...
took about 15 minutes to be honest, the caddy I got from Ebay, which was about a fiver. LINKY

Check the number of your Mac though as there are two different types I think.
 
Last edited:
Scotty Pro said:
took about 15 minutes to be honest, the caddy I got from Ebay, which was about a fiver. LINKY

Check the number of your Mac though as there are two different types I think.
Click to expand...
Thanks for that, just bought one. :)
 
Well the SSD arrived today so being impatient I've just chucked it in, used CCC (trial) to copy my original HD onto the SSD (including the Recovery segment) then put in the SSD took about 20 minutes and now it's all up and running.

The performance is night and day difference!
 
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