SSD Upgrade

meor

Hi guys,

I recently got myself a Macbook Pro (Mid-2012, 15 inch) and am looking to upgrade the RAM and swap the HDD for an SSD. Usually in this situation I would just swap the disk and boot from the install disc, however the laptop came pre-installed with Mountain Lion and there was no install media included.

I've seen different things online about making bootable USBs etc, but one thing I saw someone say was that Mountain Lion exists on the firmware, and swapping the HDD for an SSD will be enough, the laptop will then download Mountain Lion to the SSD. Is this true?

Any feedback appreciated.

Thanks.

Patrick 1

I don't think it works like that, there's no way an entire operating system or even enough of it to install exists on the laptop outside of the hard drive, your best bet will be making the bootable usb disk, using a fresh install and then connecting the old HDD into the laptop via a usb cable and transferring everything over that way, or if you know someone with a PC they could do it by plugging the two straight in.
http://www.ebay.ie/itm/SATA-To-USB-2-0-E-SATA-Enclosure-for-2-5-Hard-Drive-Silver-Brand-New-/111012800584?pt=UK_Collectables_HardDriveEnclosures_RL&hash=item19d8e0e848
Toss it into one of those and your old drive is now portable and you can transfer everything you need over.

Better yet swap out the CD drive and put this in;
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Icy-Box-IB-AC642-Adapter-for-2-5-inch-SSD-HDD-Optical-bay-caddy-for-SSD-/170990074564?pt=UK_Collectables_HardDriveEnclosures_RL&hash=item27cfcd7ac4
That link is for a one time auction but that's what you're looking for, and with both drives plugged in it should be a simple matter of copying one to the other. (I'd recommend using clonezilla but have never used it for an SSD before, so you should do some reading around it)

meor

Thanks for the reply. I got that information from this thread: https://discussions.apple.com/thread/4611143?start=0&tstart=0

From what I understood from his post (John Galt), there was enough information in the firmware to know that this laptop came with Mountain Lion, and to download it if a new disk is inserted. Possibly too easy to be true.

Patrick 1

Interesting, it looks like it can download the full os from the web, if so that seems like the best solution but I have never done it myself so I think I'll bow out for this one, good luck with it though.

meor

Cheers,

I'll reply to this thread in a few weeks once I've done the swap and let people know what method I used.

whiterebel

meor wrote: »

Cheers,

I'll reply to this thread in a few weeks once I've done the swap and let people know what method I used.

Bloody hell, how slow is your drive???

Colonel Panic

I've installed Mountain Lion using Internet Recovery. It works perfectly.

meor

Okay great. I actually ended up ordering it today so I'll post up the results next week!

meor

Hello again,

In case anyone comes across this thread looking for help:

I installed the SSD today anyway. It's a Crucial M4. All I did was open up the laptop, swap the drive, close it up and power it on. While it was booting I held command+r which brought me to the internet recovery menu. I partitioned the drive from there (just made one partition of the whole drive) then installed OSX onto the drive.

Boot time went from 1:04 to 15 seconds!

DubDJ

Apple also provides this tool for creating a bootable version of your current OS on a USB. It takes whatever current OS is on your Mac and makes an installation USB for you. It's compatible with Lion and Mountain Lion. I done it that way and it worked fine. Better option for somebody with limited internet access.

ZENER

DubDJ wrote: »

Apple also provides this tool for creating a bootable version of your current OS on a USB. It takes whatever current OS is on your Mac and makes an installation USB for you. It's compatible with Lion and Mountain Lion. I done it that way and it worked fine. Better option for somebody with limited internet access.

This process doesn't make an actual Restore Disc, Mountain Lion still has to be downloaded from Apples servers during the restore process. Not much use if you have crap broad mid-band internet access like me. Carbon Copy Cloner seems to offer the best solution.

Bought a New 250GB SSD tonight for my new MBP, using CCC to clone the original disc. Will report on its success/failure/concerns.

Ken

ZENER

So that went well !! CCC Cloned the internal drive to the SSD connected via a USB caddy. I have a Seagate FreeAgent Goflex 500GB The USB end disconnects from the main drive revealing a standard SATA interface which has proved very useful in the past ! Particularly so in this instance.

CCC created the recovery partition so that the new drive behaves exactly the same as the original. This makes the Recovery Partition required to re-install OSX should the need arise. CarbonCopy Cloner is fully functional and free as a Trial version for 30 days so no extra costs incurred. Be sure to get Version 3.5.2 for full Mountain Lion support.

The whole process took less than an hour from cloning the internal drive - testing that the clone works (System Preferences>StartUp Disk) opening the MacBook - swapping out the drive - re-assembling and rebooting.

The difference is astounding ! Apps appear to open almost before the second click. Boot time dramatically reduced.

I installed a Samsung 840 Series 250GB SSD by the way.

Ken

DotOrg

ZENER wrote: »

The difference is astounding ! Apps appear to open almost before the second click.

I assume you know that you only have to single click an apps icon to open it

ZENER

Sorry, I meant launching programs from the Applications folder. I'd opened the Utilities folder to run the Activity Monitor and was amazed at how quick it opened

Boot time down to 12 seconds to the Log-in screen. Big test will be in FCPx, will install it later and try it. The Samsung is reported to have writing concerns given its Triple layer NAND cell technology.

Ken

DubDJ

ZENER wrote: »

This process doesn't make an actual Restore Disc, Mountain Lion still has to be downloaded from Apples servers during the restore process. Not much use if you have crap broad mid-band internet access like me. Carbon Copy Cloner seems to offer the best solution.

Bought a New 250GB SSD tonight for my new MBP, using CCC to clone the original disc. Will report on its success/failure/concerns.

Ken

My mistake. I assumed it created a bootable USB using your exciting OS X install. I actually didn't know it downloaded it for you. I could of just used the recovery partition when I done it. I though it took atleast 4GB not 1GB.

There are guides online to create a bootable OS X install but you need the actual install file to do it.