Restoring from external clone to blank SSD inside system.

[vctrburk]

So I recently stumbled across the thread for the SSD adapter for the 2016/2017 Macbook Pro Non-touch bar: (https://forums.macrumors.com/thread...-2017-non-touch-bar-for-ssd-upgrades.2231881/)

I decided to buy the Sabrent 1tb 2242 SSD and the adapter. I'm just waiting on my SSD to arrive so my question is, in order to cut down on costs, could I clone my current SSD to a WD external hard drive, Install the blank SSD in my MacBook, Boot into recovery mode and use disk utility to restore the clone from the external drive to the blank internal SSD instead of buying an enclosure for an nvme that I will only use once. And yes I'm sorry for being a cheapskate lol.

 

[BrianBaughn]

Over the many years I've never used macOS tools to clone/restore an actual bootable disk so I don't even know if it could be done…particularly in Recovery Mode.

What you should be able to do is use Carbon Copy Cloner (CCC…it has a free, trial period) to clone your current SSD to an external drive, install the new one, boot from the external and then clone back to the internal.

However, the success of this will depend on what version of macOS and disk format you have and the type of external drive used. A slow (5400RPM), mechanical external HD is likely to fail cloning if your system is running on an APFS disk. See the CCC website (bombich.com) for information on this.

Hope this helps or at least gets you going.

 

[vctrburk]

Over the many years I've never used macOS tools to clone/restore an actual bootable disk so I don't even know if it could be done…particularly in Recovery Mode.

What you should be able to do is use Carbon Copy Cloner (CCC…it has a free, trial period) to clone your current SSD to an external drive, install the new one, boot from the external and then clone back to the internal.

However, the success of this will depend on what version of macOS and disk format you have and the type of external drive used. A slow (5400RPM), mechanical external HD is likely to fail cloning if your system is running on an APFS disk. See the CCC website (bombich.com) for information on this.

Hope this helps or at least gets you going.

Thanks a million for this. I have the external drive formatted in APFS but it is slow. Smart thinking to clone while machine is booted off external. I was using SuperDuper! to clone but ill take a look at Carbon Copy Cleaner.