Moving System Files to a New SSD in a MacBookPro
October 13, 2011 10:08 PM Subscribe
Adding an SSD to my MacBook Pro... How can I move the system files, and applications, as seamlessly as possible to the SSD while keeping the remainder of my files on the "normal" hard drive?
I read comment and it makes it sound very easy to just move those two folders over once the SSD is added.
For the record, I will be doing the OWC upgrade to replace my optical drive with the SSD.
Can anyone shed some light on this for me?
I read comment and it makes it sound very easy to just move those two folders over once the SSD is added.
For the record, I will be doing the OWC upgrade to replace my optical drive with the SSD.
Can anyone shed some light on this for me?
Best answer: Oh, and reading the comment you posted... don't do that. If you move /System and /Applications to one drive and leave everything else on the other, tons of stuff will break. The OS won't magically know which volume to go looking on to find its stuff.
posted by bigtex at 11:14 PM on October 13, 2011
posted by bigtex at 11:14 PM on October 13, 2011
Keep your user directory on the SSD. Your user directory has all sorts of databases (mail, itunes, safari) and caches that will greatly benefit from the high iops of an SSD. Just move your photos, itunes music, movies, etc (large media files) to the other disk.
Also, fresh installs are always the way to go, no matter how much Apple would like to pretend otherwise.
posted by mmdei at 11:22 PM on October 13, 2011
Also, fresh installs are always the way to go, no matter how much Apple would like to pretend otherwise.
posted by mmdei at 11:22 PM on October 13, 2011
P.S. make sure that the DVD sata connection is as fast as the hd... sometimes it isn't and you'd be better off placing the HD in the DVD carrier and the SSD in the hd slot.
posted by mmdei at 11:24 PM on October 13, 2011
posted by mmdei at 11:24 PM on October 13, 2011
I can't answer your question, but I would expect everything to break if you move /System to another drive. I would guess that /System would be required before the other drives on the computer are mounted and you'd get a crash.
posted by devnull at 11:32 PM on October 13, 2011
posted by devnull at 11:32 PM on October 13, 2011
Best answer: 2008 Macbook with 128G SSB (boot) and 500G SATA (data) here.
The original drive was 320G. The SSD is in the original HD slot. The aux drive is using an iFixit SATA carrier in place of the original optical drive. (I'm really happy with this, you're doing a good thing.)
I moved as much data as possible off my original drive to the data drive (in an external enclosure) so what was left on the original drive -- the boot, system and user files -- would fit on the SSD (which was much smaller).
I cloned the original drive to the SSD and then swapped them and tested the system; worked great, fast as hell.
Then I pulled the optical drive out and put the data drive in the sled and put it in the machine and sewed it up. Everything works!
Now some things just can't live on the SSD: not enough space. Photos, music, videos. I just tell the relevant app (iPhoto, Lightroom, Aperture, iMovie, iTunes) that the data goes on the data drive. For some stuff like Steam you might need to look up symbolic linking to keep the data burden on the boot drive low (google that: steam mac symbolic link)
posted by seanmpuckett at 5:45 AM on October 14, 2011
The original drive was 320G. The SSD is in the original HD slot. The aux drive is using an iFixit SATA carrier in place of the original optical drive. (I'm really happy with this, you're doing a good thing.)
I moved as much data as possible off my original drive to the data drive (in an external enclosure) so what was left on the original drive -- the boot, system and user files -- would fit on the SSD (which was much smaller).
I cloned the original drive to the SSD and then swapped them and tested the system; worked great, fast as hell.
Then I pulled the optical drive out and put the data drive in the sled and put it in the machine and sewed it up. Everything works!
Now some things just can't live on the SSD: not enough space. Photos, music, videos. I just tell the relevant app (iPhoto, Lightroom, Aperture, iMovie, iTunes) that the data goes on the data drive. For some stuff like Steam you might need to look up symbolic linking to keep the data burden on the boot drive low (google that: steam mac symbolic link)
posted by seanmpuckett at 5:45 AM on October 14, 2011
Best answer: That might not be super clear, let me try again:
I set up the SSD as a clone of the original drive, removing as much of my personal crap as possible but not touching the system at all.
The data drive has all of my personal crap, leaving the OS unfettered access to the SSD to do whatever it wants. This works and is really fast, especially when your swap space is on the SSD as it will be if you do it like this.
posted by seanmpuckett at 5:47 AM on October 14, 2011
I set up the SSD as a clone of the original drive, removing as much of my personal crap as possible but not touching the system at all.
The data drive has all of my personal crap, leaving the OS unfettered access to the SSD to do whatever it wants. This works and is really fast, especially when your swap space is on the SSD as it will be if you do it like this.
posted by seanmpuckett at 5:47 AM on October 14, 2011
Best answer: When you get your computer back from OWC your old hard drive will be untouched and you will have a blank SSD drive, right?
Just start up your computer and user SuperDuper! to selectively copy your internal hard drive to the SSD. SuperDuper! does a great job and will arrange for the SSD to be bootable, something you can't get by just dragging folders over there.
You can tell SuperDuper! to ignore the files and directories that you don't want copied over. Do this for anything that is particularly large.
Once that's finished, you can boot up off the SSD and start splitting things up the way you want on each of your two drives. This can be a frustrating and require some trial and error, as every app has its own behavior when it comes to respecting aliases and symbolic links. You should also check ~/Library and /Library for large application support folders that you may not need to use very often, such as the several megabytes of sounds and loops that Garage Band keeps around.
posted by alms at 6:56 AM on October 14, 2011
Just start up your computer and user SuperDuper! to selectively copy your internal hard drive to the SSD. SuperDuper! does a great job and will arrange for the SSD to be bootable, something you can't get by just dragging folders over there.
You can tell SuperDuper! to ignore the files and directories that you don't want copied over. Do this for anything that is particularly large.
Once that's finished, you can boot up off the SSD and start splitting things up the way you want on each of your two drives. This can be a frustrating and require some trial and error, as every app has its own behavior when it comes to respecting aliases and symbolic links. You should also check ~/Library and /Library for large application support folders that you may not need to use very often, such as the several megabytes of sounds and loops that Garage Band keeps around.
posted by alms at 6:56 AM on October 14, 2011
Best answer: Ahh! Don't put the SSD in the optical bay! The optical bay on many MBP models will *not* negotiate to the maximum SATA speed the chipsets support due to some oddness and fuckey of apple. If you go this route put the SSD in the traditional spot and move the HDD over.
I'd also use SuperDuper. Now, if you use things like FaileVault2, it's going to be a tidge more tricky, but I think you basically want /home to live on the HDD, and everything else to live on the SSD right?
Check out these instructions.
posted by iamabot at 9:12 AM on October 14, 2011
I'd also use SuperDuper. Now, if you use things like FaileVault2, it's going to be a tidge more tricky, but I think you basically want /home to live on the HDD, and everything else to live on the SSD right?
Check out these instructions.
posted by iamabot at 9:12 AM on October 14, 2011
Best answer: One last thing, the comment you link to is nowhere near verbose enough it it's discussion of mount points to work. My humble suggestion is to just move your /home folder, it's where 95% of your media will live and if you buy a reasonably sized SSD you'll be fine just moving /home.
posted by iamabot at 9:14 AM on October 14, 2011
posted by iamabot at 9:14 AM on October 14, 2011
This thread is closed to new comments.
If I were doing this, and I were dead set on transferring an existing system setup rather than doing a fresh install, I'd probably clone my original drive to the SSD first. This is easiest and safest with an external (USB, network, etc) bootable drive so neither is active and Disk Utility can just image one volume onto the other. That way I know my data is in two places and I'm not going to lose anything.
Then I'd boot off of the SSD and start selectively deleting files from either drive until you have them pared down to what you want.
Alternately, just do a fresh OS install onto the SSD and only copy over the files you want on it. It may end up being a cleaner solution, but I guess it depends on how much you've got installed and customized.
posted by bigtex at 11:13 PM on October 13, 2011