Swapping HDD for SDD In Macbook Pro 2011 Help

[Matty]

Good Morning / Evening everyone.

So here is the situation. I recently purchased a Samsung 850 Pro SSD to replace my current 5,400 rpm HDD in my 2011 Macbook Pro. I would like to keep the same OS that I'm currently running and simply make a complete copy of the drive onto my new SSD.

If i use 'Time Machine' and back up everything to the new SSD. Would i be able to simply insert that new drive in and boot up as normal or are there a few extra steps needed?

Thank you very much for any assistance, i will definitely be reading every response! ^_^

 

[nev_sim]

Hi
I just did this with mine but I did a fresh install. I also removed the optical and installed another HDD. Anyway I would do your timemachine backup to an external device, install the SSD and then install OSX. I'm pretty sure theres an option to restore from timemachine backup. I can't remember if you have to install OSX first or if you can just restore from timemachine.

Hope this helps

Cheers

Nev

 

[Matty]

Thanks for the reply Nev_Sim. This is the first time I'm doing this so just want to be 100% sure everything will be fine before I proceed. It's my school laptop so don't want a poo storm lol lol

 

[Sicily1918]

The problem with TimeMachine is that activated apps (e.g., Office) will need to be reactivated -- if you've lost that info/passwords/serial numbers/whatever, then you'll have issues.

Normally what I do is replace the HDD with the SSD, then connect the HDD with an external SATA to USB adapter, boot up the machine with Knoppix or other self-booting Linux, and run the dd command. I don't know how proficient you are with doing any of that, but assuming you are, here's what you do:

1. Get a free version of Linux and burn it on to a DVD.
2. If the current HDD is larger than the SSD, see about shrinking the partition down to slightly below the full SSD size (e.g., 510GB partition, shrink to about 495GB if SSD is 500GB).
3. Swap drives.
4. Connect HDD to external USB/SATA enclosure/adapter.
5. Reboot machine -- hold down ALT/OPTION key before Apple logo appears.
6. Pop in DVD.
7. When the drives show up, boot to the 'Windows' DVD (I believe that's what the Mac labels it).
8. Once Linux is running (you don't need a full-on graphics run level. On Knoppix, I choose runlevel 2), on the command line, run # dd if=/dev/sda of=/dev/sdb bs=1M
   • ​WARNING: Make absolutely sure the devices (sda and sdb) are correct using fdisk or hdparm or else you'll end up cloning the blank SSD onto the working HDD, thereby destroying all your data. Usually sda will be channel 0 on the SATA controller (the SSD).
9. When done -- a few hours later -- shut down and unplug the HDD, then eject the DVD.
10. Power machine on, but instead of booting to the OS, clear the PRAM and SMC.
11. Reboot -- be amazed at the speed.
12. If you resized the partition in step 2, use disk util to restore the partition to full SSD size.

Done!

While this seems like a pain, it saves a lot of headaches later

 

[dchandler]

I did the same thing not to long ago and all I did was used carbon copy cloner and it copied over my entire hard drive to my solid state including the os

 

[Sicily1918]

I did the same thing not to long ago and all I did was used carbon copy cloner and it copied over my entire hard drive to my solid state including the os

Nice! Did you clone on the running disk?

Also, did it clone the recovery partitions and all?

 

[JustMeWhoElse]

I put the Crucial MX200 500GB from Amazon

and Crucial 16GB of ram also from Amazon. Do RAM too. Huge difference with the SSD

into my 2011 MacBook Pro, same as yours and it's a different beast. Faster and a pleasure. Apps load instantly and it boots up in seconds. Faster than my iPhone

Running Developer Sierra OS since first released too now.

When I first did the SSD install, I used Carbon Copy Cloner to clone the old HD to the SSD, then installed the SSD. Use CCC, it has a free trial too. But it is amazing software.

 

[mbar9607]

I put the Crucial MX200 500GB from Amazon

and Crucial 16GB of ram also from Amazon. Do RAM too. Huge difference with the SSD

into my 2011 MacBook Pro, same as yours and it's a different beast. Faster and a pleasure. Apps load instantly and it boots up in seconds. Faster than my iPhone

Running Developer Sierra OS since first released too now.

When I first did the SSD install, I used Carbon Copy Cloner to clone the old HD to the SSD, then installed the SSD. Use CCC, it has a free trial too. But it is amazing software.

i've done 2 of these now and the first i used CCC and it was a breeze the second i just did a restore from time machine and i don't have issues with either machine