help with sad setup for Mac mini 2014

[boogiedout]

Hi all. I know there are already threads and tutorials for this but I need some clear advice. I have a 2014 mini with the crappy 5400 HDD. I've now gotten a 240gb ssd and usb 3 enclosure. Im want to run the mac and apps from the ssd. My query is this - My HDD is 1tb and we as a family have 5 profiles on it. If I install Sierra on the SSD and boot from it, can I then use time machine to bring it all back to the same state or will it tell me that the SSD is not big enough? Or will I have to start completely fresh and reinstall everything bit by bit? If I did restore from the time machine back up, would this reinstall all the profiles?
Im sorry if this has been asked before, prob has but spread over several threads, but I could really do with the help.
Thanks in advance

 

[steve217]

Boot from your HDD and click on "About this Mac" and then check the storage tab.
Is your Time Machine drive backup > 240 GB?

If not, your home free. Just restore to your SSD.

If it is > 240 Gb, and I were you, I would fuse the SSD and the 1TB platter drive. It's a little complicated but a Fusion Drive give you the speed of the SSD and eliminates the hassles of managing your own storage.

Best of luck.

 

[Fishrrman]

How much space is being used on the internal HDD -right now- ??

IF it's less than 240gb, you could do this:
- get SSD installed in enclosure, connect to Mini
- initialize it with Disk Utility
- download CarbonCopyCloner. CCC is FREE to download, and it's FREE to use for the first 30 days
- use CCC to clone the contents of your internal drive to the SSD. You will now have a BOOTABLE SSD.
IMPORTANT: CCC can also clone over the recovery partition, as well.

You could choose to leave large user libraries (such as pictures, movies and music) on the internal HDD. It's possible to setup iTunes, Photos, etc. so that the libraries it uses are on another volume (rather than in the home folder, where they consume SSD space).

This will involve some forethought and management on your part, but it's not difficult once you get the hang of things.

 

[steve217]

How much space is being used on the internal HDD -right now- ??

IF it's less than 240gb, you could do this:
- get SSD installed in enclosure, connect to Mini
- initialize it with Disk Utility
- download CarbonCopyCloner. CCC is FREE to download, and it's FREE to use for the first 30 days
- use CCC to clone the contents of your internal drive to the SSD. You will now have a BOOTABLE SSD.
IMPORTANT: CCC can also clone over the recovery partition, as well.

You could choose to leave large user libraries (such as pictures, movies and music) on the internal HDD. It's possible to setup iTunes, Photos, etc. so that the libraries it uses are on another volume (rather than in the home folder, where they consume SSD space).

This will involve some forethought and management on your part, but it's not difficult once you get the hang of things.

Fishrrman gives good advice and he is illustrating the choice between fusing and user disk space management.

By fusing, the time you spend upfront mastering terminal commands and boot protocols, you will save in manually optimizing your disk storage.

By managing the disk yourself, you just backup, restore to the new drive and go. Hopefully, with enough room on the SSD to restore your old setup.

 

[boogiedout]

How much space is being used on the internal HDD -right now- ??

IF it's less than 240gb, you could do this:
- get SSD installed in enclosure, connect to Mini
- initialize it with Disk Utility
- download CarbonCopyCloner. CCC is FREE to download, and it's FREE to use for the first 30 days
- use CCC to clone the contents of your internal drive to the SSD. You will now have a BOOTABLE SSD.
IMPORTANT: CCC can also clone over the recovery partition, as well.

You could choose to leave large user libraries (such as pictures, movies and music) on the internal HDD. It's possible to setup iTunes, Photos, etc. so that the libraries it uses are on another volume (rather than in the home folder, where they consume SSD space).

This will involve some forethought and management on your part, but it's not difficult once you get the hang of things.

I am bit shafted really. I've used about 700gb on the HDD and have 5 user accounts. I think I'm going to try and claw the used space back to about 200 and just clone it over. I'm not sure what to do with the photos but. I don't want to lose them and its in the high 90gb's.
[doublepost=1475945895][/doublepost]I feel awful asking what are probably noob stupid questions, but, if I restore from time machine to the SSD will it restore all the accounts on the mac?

 

[boogiedout]

Well, SORTED!
I followed this http://macintoshhowto.com/hardware/how-to-speed-up-your-mac-with-a-ssd-drive.html
and it has worked a treat. This ****** 2014 mid range mac mini is now flying!