Installing New SSD, Moving Spinning to secondary, How to Install OSX on SSD

[kolbygoodman]

I have a Late 2012 Mac Mini with a 1TB spinning drive in it.

Just bought a Samsung EVO 840 256GB drive I would like to install and make spinning drive a secondary.

My question is, what is the best/easiest way to get OSX installed on the SSD?
Also, with 10.8 already installed on the spinning drive, what might be the best way to remove that to get the most room out of it ?

Thanks for your help.

 

[Weaselboy]

Just use the free 30 day trial version of Carbon Copy Cloner to clone the old drive to the new.

Then reboot and in System Prefs set the startup disk to the new drive. Now erase the old drive and move what you want (photos music etc) from the new drive to the old.

 

[Designer Dale]

If you have too much stuff to go the Carbon Copy Cloner route, install the SSD and do a clean install of OSX from your App Store account. Hard wire the computer to the Internet to speed the download.

You will now have two OSX copies on your machine (I'm assuming the platter is still internal). Boot the machine with the (goof was here) Option key down and you will get a screen allowing you to pick the startup drive. Choose your SSD (name it something like MacintoshSSD) and you are set to boot off the fast one. Then go to System Preferences and dedicate it as your start-up. If you have enough room, reinstall all your apps on the SSD and remove them from the platter. There are links on-line for moving the Home Folder so the OS and apps can find files and stuff OK. I managed this on an '08 MBP and it worked out fine. A little tricky to set up, though.

You should be able to do this for free.

EDIT: Start-up with the Option Key depressed to show all attached OS volumns.

Dale

 

[Fishrrman]

Just a moment here.

If the OP installs the yet-uninitialized SSD into the Mini (with the factory-installed HDD already in there), and then boots from the HDD and launches Disk Utility to initialize the drive...

.... isn't Disk Utility going to automatically attempt to "fuse" the two drives together?

 

[MickeyVee]

I'm thinking of doing the same thing. Here's my plan:
- Clone internal drive using SuperDuper. I'm actually going to do 2 clones just in case.
- Upgrade the HW. SSD in bottom slot, spinning drive in top. Will probably have an authorized dealer to this.
- Have the process to create a Fusion Drive. Just a bunch of Terminal commands.
- Once the HW upgrades are complete, boot from one of the external clones, start Terminal and create the Fusion Drive with the two internals.
- Clone back to the internal drive.
- Enjoy the extra space and performance boost.

 

[T'hain Esh Kelch]

A quick question as I plan to add an SSD to my 2011 Mac mini today:

I plant to make the SSD the boot disc - Does it matter if the SSD gets added using the iFixit kit, or should I replace the HDD with the SSD and then put the HDD in the iFixit frame?

Edit: After much fiddling around in loooong threads, with opposite statements, the conclusion was that it doesn't matter where the boot disk is positioned.

 

[opinio]

Someone needs to do a sticky on this regular thread.