Replacing iMac Hard Drive

[Slobodan Blagojevic]

What is the best way to replace a 250 GB drive in my iMac (24" white)? I mean, I want to keep everything that is on it, so that I do not have to reinstall anything or lose anything. How do I, elegantly, transfer the data from one drive to another (bigger), including the OS (10.6.8.), without much risk and disruption? I do have another 250 GB back-up drive, using SuperDuper, btw.

[digitaldog]

Just clone the old drive to new using SuperDuper. Boot off new drive, you'll never know there was a difference other than maybe speed and extra disk space. SD will make 100% bootable clone.

[Slobodan Blagojevic]

Pardon me for being slow in this department, but how do I clone the old to new drive? At this moment, my back-up drive (250 GB) is encased. Do I have to open the case, replace it with a new drive (say 1 TB), use SuperDuper to clone the old to new, remove the new from the case, remove the old from the computer and put the 1 TB inside?

[digitaldog]

You'll have to have both drives mounted of course. Assuming the new drive is an internal, you'll need to find a goodie that allows you to mount it before you install (something like this:http://www.newertech.com/products/voyagerq.php)

OR if you have an external FireWire or similar drive, hook that up and clone the boot drive to that. Note you'll lose anything on that external drive. Then you can install new drive and format if necessary, boot off external and again, use SuperDuper to clone from external to new internal.

[Slobodan Blagojevic]

Can I do the following (seems simpler to me, no need to mount anything):

1. Check that my current back-up drive is up-to-date and capable of booting the computer
2. Replace the old internal iMac drive with new
3. Format the new drive (any need to partition Mac?)
3. Use SuperDuper to clone the back-up drive to the new

[digitaldog]

If you already have two drives where one is the master boot, the other a cloned backup, sure. Just backup to the backup disk. Install new drive. Clone from backup to new drive with SD.

[Slobodan Blagojevic]

Thanks Andrew!

Any benefit in partitioning Mac drives, e.g. for a scratch disk? Or it does not matter if the scratch disk is on the same physical drive? My usage is mostly Lightroom and Photoshop.

[k bennett]

For cloning: you could get one of these bare drive holders. I have two -- one at the office and one at home. They have proven to be very useful; for example, it's fairly painless to keep a cloned offsite backup drive at my office using this dock. Bring it home once a week, stick it in the dock, clone my iMac drive, take it back to the office.

Partitions: I've read several web sites suggesting that a scratch partition would speed up Photoshop, by my own testing on an iMac and Macbook Pro didn't show any real difference. The fastest scratch drive is just the main internal drive set up as a single partition (unless you can add a second drive on the SATA bus, which then does show an improvement.)

Is the 24 inch iMac is much fun wrt hard drive replacement as the 27?

[John.Murray]

No benefit to partitioning, the only way you'll get a performance boost moving the scratch disk is putting it on another spindle (physical drive)

[digitaldog]

I agree with John, it makes little sense to partition for a scratch disk. I'd dedicate the biggest, fastest drive I could afford for that task. 

[francois]

Can I do the following (seems simpler to me, no need to mount anything):

1. Check that my current back-up drive is up-to-date and capable of booting the computer
2. Replace the old internal iMac drive with new
3. Format the new drive (any need to partition Mac?)
3. Use SuperDuper to clone the back-up drive to the new

I would use something like a docking station or adapter.

1. Connect new drive to adapter (see above), format.
2. Clone boot drive to new drive with SuperDuper, Disk Utility or CarbonCopy Cloner.
3. Test new drive (still externally connected) thoroughly (boot, launch apps, etc)
4. Install new drive in your iMac.

I agree with John and Andrew, I never saw any speed benefit in partitioning the boot drive.