mid 2012 MBP non retina. im doing a HHD to SSD swap, and wanted to know do i have to clone my prior HD or can i just use my most recent time machine backup? will my previous time machine backups still work? anyone else that's done it, did you reinstall the original mac OS or just bring over the cloned data/time machine back up. thanks for any insight
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Both methods should work. I've used both Time Machine and cloning the many times I went from one Mac to another or changed out a hard drive. You can actually use the Migration Assistant and specify your Time Machine backup. Just make sure you have a good backup or clone. 
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To add a bit to what chscag said, you will need to be able to boot the machine once the swap is made because the new SSD will be empty and bare and need formatting for Mac. You didn't say what version of the OS you are running, but if it's High Sierra or Mojave you should be able to boot from the TM backup. Recover all your files on Mac - Apple Support
You can get directions from there for various versions of the OS.
If the OS is older, you will need to have an external enclosure for your HD to put it in and then boot from there to format/restore to the new SSD. Or you can put the SSD in an enclosure, clone the HD to it and then swap them. Frankly, that's how I would do it.
You can get directions from there for various versions of the OS.
If the OS is older, you will need to have an external enclosure for your HD to put it in and then boot from there to format/restore to the new SSD. Or you can put the SSD in an enclosure, clone the HD to it and then swap them. Frankly, that's how I would do it.
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