Upgrading the original drive in your Mac is a great way to improve performance and/or increase the storage capacity of your machine. When transferring your data from one drive to another, we highly recommend you install a fresh copy of the OS, and then use Apple's Migration Assistant to migrate your data to the new drive. While drive cloning is also an option, performing a fresh OS install and migrating your data can provide a much better starting point to ensure that everything will work correctly, and should you have any issues with your new drive, it can eliminate additional variables to troubleshoot.

I just installed a new 500GB SSD on my MacBook Pro 17' (early 2011) and used Carbon Copy Cloner to clone the contents of my current hard drive to the new one. This works well if you have a working hard drive already in your Mac; and you should clone the drive before installing the new hard drive.

Performing a fresh install will also ensure your new drive is setup with the Recovery Partition that Apple creates during the OS install process. To transfer your data, you'll need to have both your original drive and your new drive connected at the same time. Best bluetooth mouse for windows 10. For single-drive computers (e.g.

Most laptops), you'll need a device to connect the old drive to your computer after your new hard drive is installed. If you plan to use your old drive for external storage when the migration process is complete, you can install that drive into an enclosure. We offer many DIY kits with the external enclosure included. Depending on the size and connector type on your drive, you can use one of the following solutions to connect the drive: an, the, or the. In some instances, though (most notably with MacBook Airs and Retina MacBook Pros), you'll need a special enclosure for Apple's SSD. For those extremely rare cases where you can't connect your old drive externally, the following steps will be slightly different. See the Special Note at the end of the article for more details.

If the Mac can hold both the new drive and the original drive (for example, a 2006-2012 Mac Pro, or a laptop or Mac mini with a Data Doubler) no enclosure should be necessary. Please contact our if you are still unsure of which solution is best. For Mac operating systems 10.6 or earlier, you will need the installer disc for the OS. For 10.7 and later, you can use the recovery partition on the original drive. To make sure you have a functional recovery partition, restart your computer and immediately hold down the 'Command'; and 'R' keys until the Apple logo appears. If your computer boots into a four-option menu then you have a functional recovery partition that can install the OS.