performing full back up including os

A

Asian

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Hey guys, i bought a 128 gb macbook air few months back and now I've decided to upgrade my SSD to 256 gb.
Is there a way to transfer everything from my 128 gb SSD to the new one including the OS itself.
Mac doesn't come with the OS on disc anymore so not sure how to re install the OS after installing my new SSD.
 
Macs have probably the easiest full back up solution. You can use the free version of superduper to make an exact, bootable copy of your machine. Just create a partition on a external drive. Lets say you have used 100Gigs , create your partition at 130Gigs.

from there just follow the very easy prompts in Super duper and you can copy your SSD to your external drive.

Before you get the new drive in, Just boot up with the external drive plugged in. Hold down alt to get to the boot selection menu and choose the external drive. If you did the first step properly you will boot up and apart from a speed decrease you can run happily off your external.

Now when you get the new drive in, Boot up to the external and use superduper to copy the external image onto the SSD. You may have to once this is done go into system preferences and set the correct startup disk. Thats it

We use this a lot to install one computer and then just daisy chain it to make perfect copies to all the other machines for our labs.
 
I use SuperDuper, it is very easy to use. Isn't it the same as ghosting the machine?
 
I have used many apps for this purpose and have found carbon copy cloner to be the most reliable. It is also able to do incremental backups from that point. But for that purpose i use syncronize pro - easier to manage exactly what i want backed up. I have had a few instances where super duper has failed in making the new disc bootable. Copy cat also seems to be a hit or miss affair.
 
I run SuperDuper before my laptop leaves the house. Incremental backups don't generally take all that long.
Mystic Twilight said:
Do none of you use Time Machine?
Click to expand...
Not personally - it's more important to me to have a full backup of my entire drive that I can pop into my laptop at a moments notice.
 
Make sure whatever you use correctly aligns the partitions on the destination SSD.
I think the latest Acronis does. Win7 and > (sys image) does and is what I used to migrate to a larger SSD.

Some camps say this is not important for optimal performance, and some do. I am in the latter camp.
 
Mike Smit said:
Make sure whatever you use correctly aligns the partitions on the destination SSD.
I think the latest Acronis does. Win7 and > (sys image) does and is what I used to migrate to a larger SSD.

Some camps say this is not important for optimal performance, and some do. I am in the latter camp.
Click to expand...
Acronis don't seem to make a Mac version.
 
You don't need any extra apps. Just use Time Machine to backup the drive to an external drive. Install the new drive, boot into a USB Mountain Lion installer and restore from your Time Machine backup.
 
vinodh said:
You don't need any extra apps. Just use Time Machine to backup the drive to an external drive. Install the new drive, boot into a USB Mountain Lion installer and restore from your Time Machine backup.
Click to expand...

Too time consuming.
 
bwana said:
Too time consuming.
Click to expand...

To save some effort, ignore the USB boot option and boot from the recovery partition, then restore from Time Machine. If you use Time Machine regularly, you will always have backups and recovering a 128GB SSD is a lot faster than you think.
 
vinodh said:
To save some effort, ignore the USB boot option and boot from the recovery partition, then restore from Time Machine. If you use Time Machine regularly, you will always have backups and recovering a 128GB SSD is a lot faster than you think.
Click to expand...

If you do a recursive backup using superduper it's fast and restoring is much easier. You can even use the backup drive, either from an enclosure or by installing it in the computer. :)
 
+1 for Carbon Copy Cloner. Used it a few weeks ago when I upgraded the hdd on my MacBook Pro. Very easy to use, and it's free.
 
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