Swapping SSD's w/ OSX Mavericks

[Chad H]

Hey guys,
I'm fixing to upgrade my SSD that's currently in my Mac Pro. The SSD currently in it is 3+ years old and only a 128GB. I'm going to upgrade to an OWC 240GB for a fresh start and a little speed increase. I was wondering since Mavericks isn't disc based anymore how would I do this switch? I'm used to the old way(which I haven't messed with in years) of just installing the new HD and popping the system disc in and formatting the current one and then restoring. Any help would be greatly appreciated! Thanks!

 

[SSonnentag]

Reboot and hold down Command-R to bring up a recovery menu. This will allow you to connect to wifi and download/install Mavericks.

 

[Weaselboy]

Hey guys,
I'm fixing to upgrade my SSD that's currently in my Mac Pro. The SSD currently in it is 3+ years old and only a 128GB. I'm going to upgrade to an OWC 240GB for a fresh start and a little speed increase. I was wondering since Mavericks isn't disc based anymore how would I do this switch? I'm used to the old way(which I haven't messed with in years) of just installing the new HD and popping the system disc in and formatting the current one and then restoring. Any help would be greatly appreciated! Thanks!

The mentioned command-r recovery will not work with a new, blank drive since your machine does not have firmware that supports Internet recovery.

You can just pop the old drive in a USB enclosure and use either CCC or Disk Utility to clone from the old drive to the new after you format the drive.

Or, you can use this utility from Apple with a 1GB USB key to make a recovery key. Then after installing the new drive option key boot to the USB key and use the recovery console to format the new disk then DL and install Mavericks.

Or, you can download the full Mavs installer now from the App Store then use DiskMakerX with an 8GB USB key to make a full Mavs installer. You would also option key boot to this and format with Disk Util then install the OS. The only difference is the install would be off the USB key rather than form Apple's servers.

Or, if you have a local USB drive Time Machine backup, you can just option key boot that and format the drive with Disk Util then restore everything from the Time Machine backup. If you already have a TM backup, this method is the easiest.