Moving Startup drive to new drive in Yosemite using CCC

I purchased an OWC Mercury Extreme 6G SSD and plan to use it to replace my current Samsung 840 SSD on my Mac Pro. The Samsung is the current main drive on my Mac Pro. I plan to wipe the Samsung and use it as a second drive to serve as a cache drive for my Adobe projects.

I have a CCC backup and a Time Machine backup. I have never done anything like this before on a mac.

What I think I should do is go to system preferences, change the start up drive to my CCC backup, shut down, remove the Samsung, install the OWC drive, and reboot to the CCC drive and restore to the OWC drive.

Here are my questions:

1. Do I need to format the new OWC drive first before I start the process or will CCC do it for me?

2. Will the steps I have outlined work?

3. What else should I do or have I overlooked anything?


Lisa

Lisa, that should work. However I don't think you need to make the change to the boot drive before you do the swap. Just make the change, hold down Option after the chime on the boot and select the external bootable drive when it shows up. (You do have to hold Option until they show up!)

I'd test that boot from external before moving on to the hardware, though, just to make sure it's good.

I think you do need to format the SSD, but if you got it from OWC, it may already be formatted in the right way. I would recommend that after booting from the external just look at Disk Utility to see if it needs formatting and make the decision.

I have the exact same SSD and it works very, very well for me. I put a second SSD in the optical drive bay using the data doubler and use it to store big data that is relatively static (video and music, mostly). That one is a Crucial drive. Getting it in was a bit more tricky than just swapping the boot drive, but now I have a lightning fast 17" MBP that acts like a big MBA!

The steps you have outlined look good to me assuming the CCC clone is current. IIRC you can go to system preferences and reset the startup disk but don't have too. Booting with the Option key held down will also work.

Been a while since I used CCC on a new drive. I thought it did the formatting for you but this suggests that it doesn't.

That reminds me I need to do a clone.

I have an attached USB drive so CCC can clone it's little heart way so I know it is recent minus 10.10.3. I haven't installed that yet. I will go ahead and format the new drive.

I plan to try this next week as soon as I finish the large video project currently on it. We do a HUGE Easter production depicting the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus. We tape it using 3 cameras and I create a DVD, which we sell. This has been my first big project on my new Mac Pro and I will say it has performed flawlessly and fast. Multi-camera mixing will bring out the real power of a system.

I am looking forward to seeing what bump I get from the new OWC drive. But that is not the main reason I purchased it. I am currently running TRIM Enabler on the Samsung and that makes me nervous. I know me, if the PRAM needs an update, I know I will forget to shut off the app. I will then have to do a whole host of steps to get my Mac back up and running all due to the TRIM app. I am too old for that.

The OWC people convinced me their drives have firmware to take care of the garbage rewrite issue. We shall see.

I will let you know how it goes. And yes. I am a nervous nellie - for those old enough to know what the means!

Lisa

Sounds like quite a production you've tackled there. I've always liked the Mac Pro series for that kind of horsepower.. Big debate for me in the next Mac will be iMac vs. Mac Pro though either will meet my needs. In the past I've gone for expandability of the Pro even though I didn't add much to them.

I have to admit I love changing things around which is why I went with the silver Mac Pro series over the iMac and the new black Mac Pro. I like a lot of space to expand and change things around. I have already dismantled the whole thing to see how it was put together. Then I added a USB 3.0 4-port card, and a 1TB 7200 hard drive for data. Now for a second SSD.

I have had a lot of "that didn't work" moments but I learn that way as do many others. When I decided to buy my first Apple computer the addiction started. I don't tend to modify laptops, only repair if necessary. But give me a desktop with a nice big case and plenty of room for expansion on the boards - I just can't leave it alone.

Lisa

You are actually talking about a Mac Pro Lisa? Pop it in Bay 2 and proceed that way or if you really mean a MacBook Pro your plan is A1.

It is a mac pro Harry. I purchased a replacement mounting tray for one of the hard drive trays. I plan to mount it that way.

I concern is that I have never done this on any Mac, which is why I decided to ask for advice instead of doing my usually mode of just charge ahead and do it.

I have changed out many main boot drives on Windows machines but the process for Windows is different. Most of the time, if the drive needs replacing, I need to do a complete reinstall due to malware or user screw up issues. But even if the install is solid, I have never had a lot of success using cloning software with Windows. I use a drive duplicator and attach the source and target. I thought of this with the Mac but the size of the drives are not identical. The Samsung is 500GB and the OWC is 480. The cloner will not accept that. The target can be the same size or bigger, just not smaller.

To feel safe, I just want to disconnect the current main SSD, do the transfer to the new SSD using CCC. If something messes up I still have the old SSD. If not format the old SSD and set it to be my new cache drive.

Lisa

After all the fretting and worry, I started my Mac Pro from my CCC backup. I looked at the options and realized - gasp! - I could just clone the original Samsung SSD to the new OWC SSD. Okay, I know I can over think things. I do this because I have a habit of jumping in too soon, opening my mouth too soon, and it gets me into a lot of trouble sometimes.....

Anyway, it worked great! The only minor issue I had was Google Drive. I had to sign out and sign back in because I had named the new OWC SSD a different name. Not sure if that was necessary - and if it wasn't, please tell me - but it is with Windows.

Just checked the video project I have on it and everything came up perfect! Now I plan to wipe the Samsung and make it my cache drive. This way way easier than I thought it would be.

I don't know if I shared this but when I got my refurbished Mac Pro I could not find the SSD. It was not in any of the 4 bays and I looked in the secondary DVD burner bay but did not see it initially. I finally found it there and I just love the sophisticated mounting they used - really, no duck tape? If I didn't know better, I might suspect a connection to some of my redneck relatives (not profiling - just a fact. ) I plan to remount it just as soon as I find and order that adapter I saw at OWC. Not a fan of electrical tape ingenuity.

Thank you for all your help!

Lisa

Well Lisa let me tell you some bad news. After nearly 76 years that opening the mouth and leaping does not improve with age my girl! In my Mac Pro days found Icey Docks the best to use for mounting SSDs. Pop the OWC drive into Bay One as it will check there first for the boot system.

I forgot to mention that possibility (direct cloning). I wasn't sure if the difference in drive sizes might be a problem during a direct clone.

Until it died I had one of the first generation Mac Pros. Fell in love with the inside of the thing the first time I swapped in additional memory and inserted a new hard drive in one of the bays. I've thought about getting one of the last of those expandable models but given how long I keep most of our Macs there might be more longevity in getting the newest model.

Well Harry in June I will hit the big 60 - and I am still learning...sigh....

I have the OWC in the second drive bay and it seems fine, but if it will be better to move it, I can swap it. Right now I have a 1TB Hard drive for data in the first bay. Since I had no idea and ignorance is bliss, it looked okay to me!

I will check out Icy Docks - I found the website. Thanks for the info.

Lisa

What you have will work fine. The main difference is what happens when the machine looks for a boot drive. If I remember correctly the Mac Pro will default to looking in drive bay one first. It will of course look to whatever drive is identified in the Startup preference pane as well.

Well it does not seem to care where the start up is - right now bay 2. Previously it was in DVD bay 2 (the Samsung) and that worked. I have updated to 10.10.3 which went smoothly.

Ignorance is bliss again because I cloned the 500 SSD to the 480 SSD and had no issues. Of course there is only 40GB of files, which I am sure helped. I have a habit of having all my data and cache files on a drive other than the main boot drive so they do not tend to fill up.

Lisa

lclev said:

Well it does not seem to care where the start up is - right now bay 2. Previously it was in DVD bay 2 (the Samsung) and that worked. I have updated to 10.10.3 which went smoothly.

Ignorance is bliss again because I cloned the 500 SSD to the 480 SSD and had no issues. Of course there is only 40GB of files, which I am sure helped. I have a habit of having all my data and cache files on a drive other than the main boot drive so they do not tend to fill up.

Lisa

Click to expand...

AFAIK, Mac's OS has never really cared where it's boot drive is as longe as it has one available.

And isn't keeping your "data and cache files" on a separate drive like living in one house while your main one and any needed storage is in another neighbouring state??

Except maybe for some apps like Adobe that comes to mind, that just seems to like doing some things differently sometimes. ;D

I use Adobe Premiere Pro and After Effects. It is highly recommended by Adobe that you separate your cache and data from where you house the program. I have been doing this for years. If you try to put them all on the same drive the system struggles and moves very slowly when doing RAM previews.

I am also just 2 years into owning Mac's and a month into owning a Mac Pro so I am still using hard learned lessons from Windows.

Lesson 1 - Keep no data or documents on the boot drive so when Windows finally gets so slow or crashes you only have to reload the OS and programs.
- By the time the boot drive dies or needs a clean install, clearing it out will get rid of the issues that develop over time due to registry clogging up and malware removal issues that develop.

Just learning to adjust my thinking which is why I read and listen to wiser heads on the forum.

Lisa