How to migrate from one hard drive to dual hard drives ?

[rfic]

I have a 750G hard drive, and my home folder files is more than 360G

Now I plan to install a new 256G SSD, and move the orig 750G HDD to my optical bay

Now question is: what's the easiest way to migrate my system to the new 256G SSD while keep home folder files on the 750G HDD?

I use time machine to back up all files.

Any suggestion or guide line is appreciated!

 

[satcomer]

The largest reason is your iTunes Library. You should get at least an external to move it to an external. You could also use a Synology NAS. This video will explain the new easier way to move an iTunes Library to any external.

 

[simonsi]

Easiest is to find the specific library folders with the large data quantities in them such as iTunes Media, iPhoto etc and leave those on the 750 while moving everything else to the SSD.

Then you can point iTunes and iPhoto to the libraries on the 750 quite easily in there Prefs.

This avoids potential permissions issues with having the whole home folder off the boot drive.

 

[rfic]

Easiest is to find the specific library folders with the large data quantities in them such as iTunes Media, iPhoto etc and leave those on the 750 while moving everything else to the SSD.

Then you can point iTunes and iPhoto to the libraries on the 750 quite easily in there Prefs.

This avoids potential permissions issues with having the whole home folder off the boot drive.

thanks

so what u mean is: manually copy those large size folders to a seperate disk, then delete them in orig 750G HDD, then do clone copy to 256G SSD

after booting from 256G SSD correctly, then copy back those data to 750G HDD and re-link to HDD

in fact, my major question is: if i don't delete any files on my orig 750G HDD, is there any simple way to clone my Mac OSX excluding home folder to the new 256G SSD? or u think this could be risky?

thanks

 

[simonsi]

Almost.

Use Carbon Copy Cloner and uncheck iTunes and iPhoto libraries under your user account folder. CCC will warn you if you uncheck anything that makes the resulting clone non-bootable. That should massively cut down the clone drive size so it will fit onto the SSD.

When the clone has run, boot off the SSD and check everything is ok, you'll need to go into iTunes and iPhoto and select the library and point it to your libraries on the 750.

When happy and you have a new Time Machine backup, you can tidy up the folder structure on the 750 to reclaim the space, if you move the iTunes media folder or iPhoto library just go into the app prefs and point it to the new location. Keep the iTunes folder structure intact so iTunes can find everything.

 

[rfic]

great! that's exactly answer i'm looking for

appreciate!

Almost.

Use Carbon Copy Cloner and uncheck iTunes and iPhoto libraries under your user account folder. CCC will warn you if you uncheck anything that makes the resulting clone non-bootable. That should massively cut down the clone drive size so it will fit onto the SSD.

When the clone has run, boot off the SSD and check everything is ok, you'll need to go into iTunes and iPhoto and select the library and point it to your libraries on the 750.

When happy and you have a new Time Machine backup, you can tidy up the folder structure on the 750 to reclaim the space, if you move the iTunes media folder or iPhoto library just go into the app prefs and point it to the new location. Keep the iTunes folder structure intact so iTunes can find everything.

 

[h9826790]

Apart from CCC. You may consider the following procedure.

1) Install the SSD, and move the old HDD to optical bay.

2) Clean install OSX onto your new SSD (you may simply run the installer directly from HDD)

3) Boot from SSD

4) Use migration assistance to migrate the user profile or data from the old HDD.

 

[rfic]

Apart from CCC. You may consider the following procedure.



1) Install the SSD, and move the old HDD to optical bay.



2) Clean install OSX onto your new SSD (you may simply run the installer directly from HDD)



3) Boot from SSD



4) Use migration assistance to migrate the user profile or data from the old HDD.

Thanks.

For migration assistance, you mean a software or function of Yosemite itself?

 

[h9826790]

For migration assistance, you mean a software or function of Yosemite itself?

It's a part of OSX.

When you go through a clean install, it will ask you to setup as a new machine or recover from backups. At that point, it should let you choose to use migration assistance.

Otherwise, you can find it in "Applications -> Utilities"

 

[rfic]

Is this migration assistance same as use time machine restore? In fact, I did think of clean install, to avoid any possible "broken system files" get copied to new system.

 

[h9826790]

Is this migration assistance same as use time machine restore? In fact, I did think of clean install, to avoid any possible "broken system files" get copied to new system.

Not exactly. Time Machine is another function of OSX. However, Migration Assistance allow you to recover your data from Time Machine backups OR from another HDD with OSX on it (like your case).

And it allow you to choose what you want to recover. e.g. User profiles only, or applications but WITHOUT system files, etc.

So, it seems this may be an option which fit your needs.

 

[rfic]

Thanks for detail explain. I might try this option first.