Setting up a new SSD as the boot drive- double check me please

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Okay, I've been researching and trolling around, and I think I have the steps I need, but wanted to double check since it looks like AppleCare won't help me with any problems I create doing this. I have a 2010 27" iMac. I bought it relatively maxed out, quad core 2.9 i7, 8GBRAM, etc. It's nowhere near outdated, but I've been spoiled by the SSD on my Macbook Air- which has much less processing power but runs faster on a day to day basis. My plan is to have the OS, home folder, and documents on the new SSD and my iphoto, itunes, and imovie events on the HDD.

I've ordered a 256 OWC SSD drive and the necessary cables. I'm quite comfortable opening up the imac and installing the drive- but I wanted to double check getting the new drive up and running. I have two current time machine backups, one to a Firewire drive and one Time Capsule, so everything is backed up x2.

Here's my plan:
1. Install the drive
2. Boot up, open disk utility, format as GUID
3. Download Mountain Lion from App store and do clean install on the new SSD. I could clone, but a clean install seems like a good idea.

???- Will I need to change the startup disc at this point or will it do it automatically as a part of the install/reboot cycle?

4. Reboot- hopefully on the SSD as this point
5. Use migration assistant to move user files, applications, documents etc but NOT my iTunes, iPhoto, and Movie folders, those stay on the HDD. Depending on file size, I may move the iPhoto to the SSD, we use that a fair bit...
6. Clean up/Delete the redundant data from the old HDD (documents that were moved to the new drive).

At this point, I should have OSX up and running on the SSD, correct? I guess I will have two bootable drives at this point, the old HDD and the new SSD, I just need to pick one as the startup disk in settings? Any reason to get rid of the old OS other than space? I figured I would keep it around as a backup option for a little while until the dust settles. Or will it confuse the Mac to have two bootable drives installed?

I know how to point iTunes and iPhoto to the old libraries. I'm contemplating using symbolic links to point to the old Movies and Photos folder, so iMovie still 'sees' my old video projects/event library etc. I'm hoping to leave the file structure on the old HDD intact in case I ever need to pull the SSD and have Apple work on the mac- I still have one year of Applecare left.

Will Time Machine back up both drives or just the system SSD drive? That would be a reason not to mess with symbolic links/home folders. I still want my iPhoto on the HDD backed up regularly/automatically.

Thoughts? Thanks in advance.
 
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G'day and welcome to the forums.

Be aware changing the drive can cause huge problems with the Apple heat sensor connections. Go with the clean install on an SSD, not cloning. Have a read of this link from Apple Discussions.


https://discussions.apple.com/thread/2526125?start=0&tstart=0

I'm not touching the existing drive. Just adding the SSD to the unused SATA port. Not gonna mess with the temperature sensors on either the HDD or optical drive. I've heard Apple has made that a pain in the backside...
 

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