How to move Mac OS X installation to another drive | Migrating OS X to new drive

Migrating Mac OS X installation to new drive in order to upgrade it -- is a good way to improve experience with Mac.

Transferring or moving OS X or your data you will need to connect your new drive to your system first. Then you have to choose the best way among Migration Assistant and installing a fresh copy of OS X. Among both the methods, Apple recommends installation method instead of Migration Assistant because installing a fresh copy of OS X gives a clean start. It means that if there was any issue with operating system on your old Mac drive than it will be not there after fresh installation. The fresh installation cleans all the leftovers, logs that tends to increase as we use our machines.

Your new drive without these leftovers files tends to give more performance and stability. Especially for Mac OS X 10.7 and later versions of OS X, it is highly recommended to use fresh installation OS X method because these Mac OS have invisible Recovery partition which is created.

Steps to move Mac OS X to a new drive:

Step1: Install correct drive in your computer

Make sure to check your model configuration and install the drive that will compatible on it.

Step2:Ensure s way of transferring data:

As discussed above for transferring your data to new drive you will need to connect both your original and new drive to system using some device like adaptor or external enclosure. In case of laptops(single drive computer) you will need to have a device to connect old drive to your system after being installed new drive to it.

But, in rare cases if you can't connect drive externally the aforementioned steps will be slightly different. In thi case see the Important Note I have given at the end of this article.

Step3: Make sure to have current Backup and clone of your old drive

Before begin the process of upgrading make sure to take backup of your data on an external drive. And it is recommended to take clone Mac hdd including installed apps and OS using software like Stellar Drive Clone. This will keep you stress free if any unlikely event of data loss occur during the process of upgradation.

Step4: Install your new designated drive:

Now, you should install your new checked drive in your Machine.

Step5: Connect old drive externally:

Here connect your old drive as discussed in step 2 to external enclosure or using the appropriate cable.

Step6: Boots up to installation disc or Recovery HD

Those having 10.6 or earlier just boot to your installer. For users running Mac OS X 10.7 or later can boot to Recovery HD by holding cmd+R keys during startup.

Step7: Formating on new drive:

To format your new drive use Mac inbuilt Disk Utility find in Utilities menu. Open Disk Utility, select your new drive from left pa of Dis utility and then click on Erase tab onn the right side. Now, set the Format to “Mac OS Extended Journaled” which is recommended format to Mac OS machines.

Step8: Install OS X on new drive:

After formatting the drive, closing disk utility itself take you to the installation process in case you have 10.6 or earlier versions. But, if you have 10.7 or later, then from Mac OS X utilities you need to select “Reinstall Mac OS X” option.

Now, all you need to do is just follow on screen instructions. But, make sure to choose your new drive as the install location for Mac OS X. As the process is automated so you can do any of your task instead of waiting for installation.

Step9: Transferring data using Migration Assistant:

After installation o OS X on new drive you have to complete some final steps by through some prompts point to Migration assistant. Otherwise you can find Migration Assistant in application-> Utilities folder of your Mac. Run this apps and select the option to tranfer data and click continue.

You can select or deselect items like user information,folders and apps that you want to transfer over another drive. After selecting these click “transfer” button. Now time it will take depend on the amount of data you are transferring and on media of tranfer.

Step11: Run software update:

Go to Apple menu-> select software update on your new installation and run updates avilable for version of OS X or other updates.

Step12: Repir Disk Permissions using Disk Utility:

Open Disk utilty in aaplication folder inside utilities. Select your new drive in left hand pane of disk utility and click on 'First aid tab' -> click 'Repair Disk Permissions'.

Step13: You are DONE!

After double check your drive to make sure data came correctly you can delete datat from old drive and can used it for other purpose.

Step 14: SPECIAL NOTE...

If anyhow you can't attach your old drive externally you can do this by creating a clone of your original drive or if you have time machine backup(that you can use in place of your original drive). Only you have to perform a variation after step 4.

• Create a clone using Stellar Drive Clone application(gives bootable clone) to external drive.
• Clone Mac is easy and fast process and can be achieved in running Mac.
• After Step 4 upto 13, just use cloned external drive instead of original drive while performing above steps.
• If you have Time machine backups than you can use it in place of original drive and transfer data using Migration assistant.