[mrmark]

I'm here in China with my Macbook Pro with a 80 GB Hardrive and I'm planning on changing my harddrive to a bigger and maybe faster one. But i have three choices of harddrives here: Samsung, Hitachi and Seagate. Now all are about the same price, though Samsung is slightly more expensive than the other two. My goal is to buy a 160 GB HD with 5400 rpm (they dont go faster here in China store).
Which brand do you people recommend? I don't wanna end up installing my harddrive and getting my pretty little MBP all screwed up because of some wrong brand HD.


Maybe some people can also be of help with this question:
If i only have one Macbook Pro, one 250GB USB HD (with only 20GB left) and one new (to be bought) harddrive to be installed into my MBP, How can i transfer all of my data from my old harddrive to my new one without losing anything? So to say, a 1-on-1 copy of the harddrives.

Thank you all for your help.

[smax013]

mrmark said:

I'm here in China with my Macbook Pro with a 80 GB Hardrive and I'm planning on changing my harddrive to a bigger and maybe faster one. But i have three choices of harddrives here: Samsung, Hitachi and Seagate. Now all are about the same price, though Samsung is slightly more expensive than the other two. My goal is to buy a 160 GB HD with 5400 rpm (they dont go faster here in China store).
Which brand do you people recommend? I don't wanna end up installing my harddrive and getting my pretty little MBP all screwed up because of some wrong brand HD.

Maybe some people can also be of help with this question:
If i only have one Macbook Pro, one 250GB USB HD (with only 20GB left) and one new (to be bought) harddrive to be installed into my MBP, How can i transfer all of my data from my old harddrive to my new one without losing anything? So to say, a 1-on-1 copy of the harddrives.

Thank you all for your help.

As to the brand, any one of those will likely do fine. Different people will have different preferences. Personally, I tend to like Seagate over the others that you listed, but Samsung or Hitachi would not be a "wrong" choice.



As to transfering the data, most people tend to use SuperDuper to clone drives. You could clone from the internal drive to your external USB drive, then install the new drive, boot off the external drive and clone back to the new internal drive from the external drive. Another option is to get an external enclosure for internal drive such as this (or whatever you can get your hands on in China...note: I personally like to use Firewire based external drives with my MacBook Pro as Firewire is faster and generally presents fewer problems with using bus power to power the drive...many bus powered USB drives require the use of an external power adapter or two USB ports on the MacBook Pro), and then either put the new drive temporarily in the external enclosure, clone the old internal drive to the new drive in the enclosure, and then take the new drive out of the enclosure and install it and put the old drive in the enclosure to use as a data/backup drive...or install the new drive, put the old drive in the enclosure, boot off the old drive in the enclosure, and then clone from it to the new internal drive. Either way, you get a "new" external drive for data backup or additional storage as you can put the old internal drive in the external drive enclosure.

[macnuke]

like smax said. get an external enclosure and stick your old drive in it.

while i also agree on an FW enclosure, i also recommend one that is either/or powered.
i mean one that can use an external PS that you would plug into the wall socket, or you can let it be powered from the bus.
I like options :)
besides... it's a laptop. i prefer not to be drawing extra power from it that i really don't need to. extra power usage = extra heat.
not a big deal wit a desktop, but on a lap.... heat = bad.

you can either use migration assistant or SuperDuper or Carbon Copy Cloner or any of the other utilities to clone back leaving your new drive looking and feeling like the old one except roomier.

and like smax stated. you now have an external for backups/repairs/maintenance which you will come to appreciate at the most inconvenient times.

[pradeep]

Hi
I am planning to do this with my Black Macbook which has a 80 GB HDD. I have a 250 GB HDD with me which I was planning to partition with Boot Camp. Should I do the partition & then run Super Duper on one of the partitions? If I back up the drive with Time Machine can I put the Time Machine drive into the MacBook?
Also will the 250 B drive go into the MacBook?
Thanks
Pradeep

[smax013]

pradeep said:

Hi
I am planning to do this with my Black Macbook which has a 80 GB HDD. I have a 250 GB HDD with me which I was planning to partition with Boot Camp. Should I do the partition & then run Super Duper on one of the partitions? If I back up the drive with Time Machine can I put the Time Machine drive into the MacBook?
Also will the 250 B drive go into the MacBook?
Thanks
Pradeep

If you have not already setup your current drive with Bootcamp, then I would wait until AFTER you install it in the computer and clone the old drive to it. It is easier to mess with one parition than two.



I don't understand your Time Machine question. Are you asking if you use the 250 GB drive as the backup drive for Time Machine can you then put the drive with just the Time Machine backup on it in the computer, replacing the current drive? If that is the question, then the answer (to the best of my knowledge) is no. Time Machine does not make bootable clones. It is a "traditional" backup type program. If you have ANOTHER drive (other than the 80 and 250 GB drives) and you use it do a Time Machine backup, you could then install the new 250 GB drive, install the OS using the install disks that came with the computer, and then use Time Machine to restore the backup from the third drive.



As to will it fit...most likely...depends on what drive you got. I can tell you that the Western Digital 250 GB 5400 rpm SATA drive that I got for my MacBook Pro fit just fine.

[pradeep]

Thanks smax

You answered one question. I thought that Time Machine made a bootable clone.

So looks like I will have to go the Super Duper route. Is Super Duper better than Migration assistant?

Also, I thought that you have to format the disk to partition for Boot Camp? which is why I thought is best to partition before cloning the drive. Are there any problems with using Boot Camp?

Pradeep

[pradeep]

Let me add one more variable to this equation. The MacBook in question is installed with Tiger. I have just bought a bootable disk of Leopard which I was planning on using to upgrade this machine. Should I do the upgrade before or after cloning? I mean, should I
1) install Leopard on the blank external 250GB HDD & use Migration assistant from the internal Tiger disk before changing the drives around? or
2)use Super Duper to clone the internal & then transfer the drives?
If option 2 then is it better to upgrade to Leopard before or after the cloning?

Does all this work on a USB enclosure? I have all PPC macs & none of them work with USB hard disks for booting.

Thanks
Pradeep

[smax013]

pradeep said:

Thanks smax

You answered one question. I thought that Time Machine made a bootable clone.

So looks like I will have to go the Super Duper route. Is Super Duper better than Migration assistant?

Also, I thought that you have to format the disk to partition for Boot Camp? which is why I thought is best to partition before cloning the drive. Are there any problems with using Boot Camp?

Pradeep

SuperDuper is a completely different animal than Migration Assistant, so I am not sure if you can look at it as being better or worse. They do two completely different things.



You will have to repartition and format the disk for Bootcamp...but the Bootcamp Assistant can do all that non-destructively. In otherwords, it does NOT require you to wipe the hard drive. This is assuming my memory is correct (it has been I while since I did it). Regardless, when doing ANY hard drive partitioning stuff, whether non-destructive or not, you will want to backup your system first.

[smax013]

pradeep said:

Let me add one more variable to this equation. The MacBook in question is installed with Tiger. I have just bought a bootable disk of Leopard which I was planning on using to upgrade this machine. Should I do the upgrade before or after cloning? I mean, should I
1) install Leopard on the blank external 250GB HDD & use Migration assistant from the internal Tiger disk before changing the drives around? or
2)use Super Duper to clone the internal & then transfer the drives?
If option 2 then is it better to upgrade to Leopard before or after the cloning?

Does all this work on a USB enclosure? I have all PPC macs & none of them work with USB hard disks for booting.

Thanks
Pradeep

You can do it any of the ways you listed...a) install the disk and install Leopard and use Migration Assistant; b) upgrade the current internal drive to Leopard and then do the cloning & drive replacement; or c) do the cloning & drive replacement and then upgrade to Leopard. I am not sure if I consider one better or worse than the others. The forth option is upgrade the current internal drive to Leopard, use Time Machine to backup the drive, install the new drive and install Leopard on it, and then use Time Machine to restore the backup. This last option could be considered "worse" because it requires a third disk, but if you already have such a disk then it is not really worse than the others.



One thing to keep in mind is that you will NOT be able to do Bootcamp until you have Leopard installed. Bootcamp was a beta that has since expired in Tiger. If you have Bootcamp partition setup in Tiger, you can still use it, but I don't believe you can remove or modify that Bootcamp partition (other than wiping the entire disk and starting from scratch) unless you upgrade to Leopard.



The other thing to keep in mind is what kind of install of Leopard you want to do. You can just do a pure upgrade (i.e. it just upgrades the existing OS as is), which many do NOT recommend. You can do an Archive and Install and then copy stuff over as you see fit from the archived older OS stuff. You can do a new Install and just re-install applications manually and copy files over from a backup. You can do a new Install and use Migration Assistant from a cloned disk. I will be honest and say I am not sure which is the best option...I am still debating how I will do it myself...which is part of the reason I have not gotten around to upgrading to Leopard myself yet.

[pradeep]

Thanks
Your replies have been very informative. It is nice to know that us mac users have so many options. My Windows using friends cannot believe that you can do all this in the Mac. In the Windows world, installing an operating system is specific to a machine & cannot be reproduced on a disk.
Why do you say that a pure upgrade is not recommended? I have done that on my Powerbook & iMac (both PPC) & do not seem to have any issues. It has slowed down my Powerbook (1.67 GHz G4) but actually speeded up the iMac (2.0 GHz G5)
Pradeep

[smax013]

pradeep said:

Thanks
Your replies have been very informative. It is nice to know that us mac users have so many options. My Windows using friends cannot believe that you can do all this in the Mac. In the Windows world, installing an operating system is specific to a machine & cannot be reproduced on a disk.
Why do you say that a pure upgrade is not recommended? I have done that on my Powerbook & iMac (both PPC) & do not seem to have any issues. It has slowed down my Powerbook (1.67 GHz G4) but actually speeded up the iMac (2.0 GHz G5)
Pradeep

It is generally not recommeded because any little "errors" or "kinks" that have developed over time can get "built in" to the install of upgrade and can only get worse. Many like the "clean slate" of a new install. If your system is fairly new, then the upgrade option is considered more viable.

[pradeep]

Then I guess I will just load the Leopard on the new disk & use migration assistant to transfer my data. I really hate reinstalling all the applications & the migration assistant should prevent that.
Do you think it is worth upgrading the old disk to Leopard before migrating? or just leave it as Tiger.
I will let you know how it goes.

Thanks again
Pradeep