2012 Mini Drive Replacement Question

[dmunz]

First, I suspect there is an answer to this buried in one of the many drive replacement threads but, because my case is a bit specific, maybe not.

I have a 2012 mini that came with the 1TB hard drive. I upgraded to a dual drive system by adding an SSD with the fixit kit. I did not create a fusion drive. The SSD is my boot drive and has BCD device node "disk0s2"; the spinner has BCD device node "disk1s2".

I'm now getting S.M.A.R.T. status failing on the spinner so I want to replace it with one, larger, drive (1TB to 2 or maybe 4). I'm completely comfortable with the hardware side of the replacement but I'm not so sure about copying files or recreating the second drive.

Is this simply a copy and replace? (I have an external kit for that connection to USB.)

Can I use my TimeMachine backup after swapping the drives?

Or is there a better way?

TIA
DLM

 

[for this]

If that (failing) drive contains only document files, you can just copy them. But if there also are system files, you will have to use one of these cloning options: Restore function in Disk Utility, Time Machine, or a utility like Carbon Copy Cloner. Personally I'd use Disk Utility's Restore because it's free and Time Machine is too involved for just a one time cloning like this.