27inch to 21.5 inch .Hard drive clone?

[Londonluke]

My old and trusty 27 inch decided to have a "sleep issue " and nothing could solve it. SO bought a 2104 21.5. imac. Ok, i lose the screen real estate . But i like it !

Opened the 27 and removed hard drive .I have it in a caddy and its all running as a start up disk etc . No problems . Internal HD runs Catalina .

2 question for you .

1. I do NOT do any form of games editing etc . few word documents , internet stuff etc .Nothing taxing for the machine . Should i take a chance NOW and swap out the internal 1tb for a SSD. Run the basic OS etc off this .Store pics etc to external SATA drives ?
will the file opening speeds etc be of any importance to me ? !

2. What is the safest way to clone over the caddy drive contents to the internal drive ? Reason for doing it is mainly "desk clutter" and i like the whole point of it been all internal etc?



Then i end up with exactly what i had . And can update it all to Catalina etc .


cheers

 

[Londonluke]

Help !@

 

[Fishrrman]

Your OP is a jumble of thoughts.
What do you want to do?
Just move your personal files over?

 

[Londonluke]

Ok...

Is it worth swapping the drive over for a SSD in the long run

And yes , swapping files over .

 

[Fishrrman]

Did you say that you're able to boot and run the 2014 iMac from "the old hard drive" in the caddy?

What kind of drive is inside the NEW iMac?
Platter-based?
Or... fusion?

IF you can boot/run it with the old drive, then I'd suggest:
- Get a pre-assembled EXTERNAL USB3 SSD, or
- Get a bare SATA 2.5" drive and a USB3 2.5" enclosure
- Download CarbonCopyCloner (free to download and use for 30 days)
- Use CCC to clone the old drive to the new SSD
- Connect that to the 2014 and set it to be the boot drive.
- Run that way.

You COULD open up the 2014 and install the SATA drive internally, but I would recommend this ONLY if you have the confidence and skill to do it without breaking something inside.

Going the external route will give you 85% of the speed, with NO risk of breaking anything.

 

[Londonluke]

The newish imac has a 1tb WD drive . Same as my old 27 inch . I can switch boot from either and they work fine .But all my old stuff is on the "now eternal" drive in the caddy . But I hate having more desk clutter than i need . (I am terrible for clutter elsewhere !) Dont mind opening it up as I have opened my 27 inch a few times and watched first hand a 21.5 been opened .And I can source the kit and adhesive strips easily etc . I have also a double caddy /enclosure with 2x WD 1tb drives that I use for photos etc . SO really wondering if i should before I settle down and get on using the newish imac, swap out the drive for a new SSD of about 350gb etc to cover the OS and a few small other apps like Pages etc . This size should allow some growth if i add the odd app. Thanks