Cloning os?

I am thinking of buying a macbook pro and upgrading the hard drive. I am pretty good with hardware, but I am completely clueless with software. If I buy a usb case for the new drive can I just carbon copy the OS and the basic programs over to the new drive? Is that a pretty easy procedure?

SuperDuper!

You can copy your entire os onto your external, then stick that drive in your macbook pro and your gold.

Jeremy

It couldn't be easier. It's easier to clone the drive then it is to do the install of the drive. So have at it.

The new drive will more then likely come partitioned in a MS Windows format.
Once you have it installed in the external enclosure, open "Disk Utility" select your new drive, and repartition and format it "Mac Os Extended (journaled)" and click the Options button and select Guid as the partition type.
Now Clone your existing drive to this newly formatted drive using Carbon Copy.
Sounds complicated to a novice, but actually the whole process is quite painless.