MacBook SSD Replacement – How to Clone MacBook’s SSD When Replacing

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so I have a MacBook Pro, a new drive (NVMe SSD), PC, and portable USB HDD.
The goal is to clone the MacBook's drive to a new drive (which cannot be attached to MacBook at the same time with the old drive).

  1. It looks like I can attach the portable HDD to the MacBook and clone MacBook's drive to it and then attach both the new drive and portable HHD to PC and clone it again there. Is it possible, right?

  2. Can I attach the new SSD to the PC and clone MacBook's SSD via network?

Another way is to buy an adapter for NVMe to connect to MacBook via USB but I would prefer to not do it.

P.S. I have an adapter for NVMe SSD to connect to MacBook

Best Answer

If you can't connect the old and new drives to the Mac at the same time, follow this procedure:

  1. Create a clone copy from the old drive onto the intermediary external USB drive, using Carbon Copy Cloner or SuperDuper!.

  2. Then swap the hardware over.

  3. You will need to boot to the intermediary drive (or a fourth drive!), so that you are free to write all over the new internal. (So make sure you've installed an OS on the disk beforehand...!)

  4. Use one of the apps mentioned above (the same one!) to copy the clone back to the blank new drive.

Generally, I would always advise having a spare drive with a bootable OS on it, 'just in case' - even if it's just a little 64 GB flash drive or something. (Oh, and of course, you'll also have another drive for your backup...!)

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