How To Clone iMac HDD to SSD

[@matthewdavis4629]

The steps were explained well and it worked! The following is differences between my mac and the video to answer anyone else’s questions: My Mac was formatted in APFS, so I erased the SSD to APFS. Also there was “Macintosh HD” and “Macintosh HD-Data” in my internal drive, so I restored “Macintosh HD” to the SSD and it automatically restored “Macintosh HD-Data” with it as well.

[@nikitadostoevsky4609]

DAMN MAN! I should have gone to the comment section right away. I spent 30 minutes looking for this info in google. bless you!

[@zekethep1umber]

Yes I needed this information too

[@jdewrecords7304]

So all the data from your old hard drive are now on your ssd? How do I prevent this? My Mac is also formatted in APFS but I still want to make a clean install..

[@oliverqueen5508]

Wish I saw this. I am in the middle of things right now. I saw both and picked -Data and restored from there. We'll see how it turns out.

[@MACLima]

Thanks for that, mate. Gonna test it now.

[@NICHOLAS-THE-WATCHMAN]

Well this is the first time EVER where I followed instructions on a KZbin video to discover that it actually WORKS. Thank you sir.

[@Bren39]

Thanks!

[@beefmaster_james]

Hey thanks so much for the tip!!

[@mattw.3084]

Just updated my 2011 macbook pro to 16 gig ram and 1tb ssd. New battery as well. Thanks for the clear instructions and no suspect 3rd party cloning software. One of the best tutorials available.

[@PerrynBecky]

This is really easy to follow. So many will toss a word salad trying to sound more intelligent than they are, and being a retired auto mechanic who was also an instructor, I learned that if you talk over your student's heads, you taught them nothing other than how you stroke your massive ego. Thank for for this refreshing and useful information.

[@beefmaster_james]

Thanks for the post. I wish you had taught some of my classes back in the day. We need more teachers like you.

[@cdtynes]

Thanks for the video. I used a Crucial 2TB drive & followed your instructions. I had almost 400GB of data on my old drive. It took most of the night to transfer the data across a USB line, but it worked flawlessly. My old iMac is faster now than when it was new!

[@joepadua]

Thanks a lot, you managed to explain everything in 7 minutes. I started to watch other videos with unnecessary BS and had to stop them. Your video is the best, good job Bro!

[@silegnav]

Nice video, one comment for users on older versions of OS X. I'm running 10.11 El Capitan and didn't have the Restore button as an option in my Disk Utility. I had to click on the "Edit" menu at the top and found Restore there. Rest of the steps are the same.

[@beefmaster_james]

Great tip. Thanks for sharing.

[@jeffob8785]

Great tutorial here on how to configure your new SSD drive for your old MAC. I am in the process of changing out my old HDD in my 2009 iMAC and bought a kit from OWC with a 500GB drive. There are a lot of posts on how to physically change the drives out, but not much on how to clone your old drive before you change it out. This one was very complete and comprehensive and I am now booting and running on the new SSD (externally connected temporarily. The only thing not covered here is if you are replacing your old drive with a new one with less storage. My original HDD is 1TB, the new SSD is 500GB, so I did have to partition the old drive before cloning.

[@joewhitfield6316]

Fantastic tutorial. I used this on my MacBook Pro, flawlessly. Thanks!

[@talldave7799]

Thank you so much for sharing this recovery method using Disk Utility! The Apple folks were ONLY offering the OS retore from the Apple Store and because the used iMac I had bought was NOT in my profile, the restore was not working! Serioulsy annyoing restriction they have set up on retores working unless you have that specific model and OS in your profile! And Apple Support would not add that OS to my profile when I asked. So, finding this by sheer accident today was a life saver! I am posting this message as the new SSD is being restored!! Thanks again for sharing this.

[@hhawki3]

Installed new Samsung SSD 1TB hard drive. I can’t put into words how satisfied and impressed I am! Feel like I’ve gone to light speed! Thanks for making life on my 2011 iMac better!

[@beefmaster_james]

You are awesome. Thanks for sharing. Glad it made your Mac run faster 🖥️ !

[@hhawki3]

@@beefmaster_james one question for you James, after installing new hard drive, when I try to access Mavis Beacon typing, I get an error message saying “cannot access

[@hhawki3]

“Cannot use iTunes library because it is missing”. Any suggestion on how I can remedy this? Thanks.

[@samuelrivera2499]

I have watched several videos from KZbin, but I did not understand clearly. With this video everything became clear to me. Excellent video, short, clear and very easy to understand. Thank you a thousand. The Beef

[@beefmaster_james]

Yessir, Mr. Samuel. I'm glad it helped you out.

[@kenbenson-clarke2753]

wow, thanks, this time no one talking for ages about nothing. You got it right, excellent documentary on how to do without the fluff. .

[@thepetethorpe]

I've just completed a HDD to SSD upgrade on my mid 2010 iMac 21.5" following your instructions. OMG, so easy to follow and complete. However, it took over 5 hours to clone all my data from the old HDD. I've upgraded the RAM to 16GB too now and it's like a new machine. I think I need to get back inside though - there is some fan noise, that's annoying

[@pavelt.104]

Did you fix the fan noise ?

[@partywallsurveyor]

If you've changed the internal hard drive to an SSD then you'll need a fan sensor. The original HDD has the sensor built in so when you replace it with an SSD the machine doesn't know the temp and just runs the fan at full speed. Easy repair OWC do the sensor.

[@mxoh]

@@partywallsurveyor "Easy repair OWC do the sensor" can you explain? it doesn't make sense

[@juicer52]

@@mxoh OWC is NOT a thermal sensor. It is a piece of firmware that tricks the Mac into thinking that you are using a genuine Mac HD. The $50 OWC cable/sensor is unnecessary. There is an ssd fan speed controller that you can install. Watch kzbin.info/www/bejne/iKGaaJdmiNFpfNE for the free download and instructions. Saved you $50. Pass it on.

[@mxoh]

@@juicer52 nice

[@3dulimited952]

Thank you very much - especially for mentioning that the format types must be noted on the internal hard drive when formatting the SSD - I had a complete nightmare doing this missing that point trying to do after watching other videos but you mentioned that very clearly and that was very useful without which I couldn’t have done this 🙏🙏

[@dwest8245]

As someone who runs a 2010 MacBook Pro, thank you! This worked perfectly. Saved me $$$ on a new product. So cool

[@beefmaster_james]

Thanks for sharing. It makes a huge difference to upgrade. Glad it help you.

[@jsnichols1]

This weekend I will be installing a 500GB SSD, 16 GB memory and new battery on a Macbook Pro 2011 15". This is by far one of the best videos and easiest ways to migrate/clone the data. Much thanks!!

[@beefmaster_james]

Thank you for watching. Hope it helps your upgrade.

[@bobc5383]

Thank You! I followed your video and it worked flawlessly. I was just about to shell out $1500 for a new Mac.I am $1400 to the good right now!!!

[@beefmaster_james]

Thanks for posting. Love to see comments like this.

[@kashpatel9979]

Brilliant tutorial on how to clone an Imac to a SSD drive, very nicely spoken with clear and concise instructions, thank you 😀

[@andrewmaksimovich2432]

Great video and very clear steps shown in the video. I’m restoring a 2011 iMac with a failing harddrive. With help from a Mac OS usb I was able to startup and repair the old drive. Surprisingly it wroked! Now I’m cloning the old Hdd to the new ssd, hopefully it will work. Thanks for the help

[@Tannerxcsoaring]

Unbelievable! I have, or had, a super slow beachball spinning iMac(2017). Bought a scan disk ssd, followed your instructions, and wham! Fast Mac. Thanks a lot. I'll subscribe.

[@beefmaster_james]

Thank you, Tim. Greatly appreciate the comment and subscription.

[@Funky_Astroman]

Man just a great all around video. Instructions were clear and very helpful you didn’t leave out any details. Keep doing your thing man

[@InCountry6970]

One of the best descriptive step by step explanations out there. Great job.

[@p6x2]

Your tutorial is better than many others out there. It teaches us that you do not need a "clone" software to migrate the data from your internal drive into the new one. I am going to use external SSD drives for both my iMac late 2011 and Mac Book Pro Retina late 2013. Not so much for speed, but for capacity. Both my internal drives are almost full, and I am using external HDDs for additional storage capacity. I attempted to replace the internal SSD of my Mac Book Pro Retina late 2013, with one sold by iFixit. Installing the new SSD (480 Gb) to replace the existing 256 Gb was very easy. I had also purchased the tools to do it. Penta and torx screw drivers. However, I incurred a lot of problems with the Apple reinstall option (Command + Option + R). I got several error messages, before I got to the 4 options menu as shown on your video. All the error messages happened along the reboot process: "apple.com/support-5101F" or -2005F, or 2100F. It took me several attempts to get to see the disk utility option. None of the above errors are documented. I found a Reddit thread that suggested to do a (Command + Option + P + R) that solved my problem. Conclusion; most of the videos shown on KZbin, treating the same subject are always perfect cases. It would be great if you mentioned what can be done in situations when not everything goes as per your demonstration.

[@itsAag99]

Awesome It worked for the MacBook Pro 2012 Mid year version too.. Solid state device rocks at rocket speed than HdD👍🏼

[@jascam1]

As always another great video, this covers all the basics of a semester in Tech school after you cut away all the fluff.

[@jaystepien921]

I just upgraded my iMac by closely following your instructions. Everything is working like a dream, thank you very much. Your videos are the best!

[@beefmaster_james]

Thanks Jay. Really appreciate the comment.

[@aldito35]

you are the man!!!! Nobody will tell me what tool i need it to clone the hard drive !!!thank you. thank you, and thank you!

[@petervernon6503]

Thaks for an excellent video tutorial. I followed the instructions and saved myself a couple of hundred pounds in chamging the drive myself. Keep up the good work!!

[@brandonfranklin6636]

Excellent instructions good video. Left out the fact that if your hard drive is encrypted you will need to decrypt the hard drive before you can complete this process. Great video everything worked as expected

[@aronbraund363]

Do you know how to decrypt the HD?

[@thomassilberg9843]

​@@aronbraund363 Hi Brandon - I succeeded to make a clone and it work - but everytime my macbook starts it asks for the PW for the hdd - any advice how get rid of that?

[@bobbysbackingtracks]

On OS Catalina I get 2 options Macintosh HD and Macintosh HD Data. Which one do I choose?

[@flynsqrls]

Great question... I tried the Macintosh HD Data. For some reason, the new names I gave my SSD drive did not show up, just like what you experienced. It seems it went well, but I did not notice and speed increase in booting up via the SSD. I'll swap out the original HD tomorrow and see if there is an improvement! Blue skies!

[@obiwan19771]

This video was a HUGE help. I followed it step-by-step and the drive worked perfectly. Thank you so much for your time putting it together. Thanks again for the great video.

[@beefmaster_james]

Thanks for taking time to comment. Really appreciate it.

[@MinhPham-dc5sn]

Your videos is easy to understand! Thank you so much! 2nd method: Clone HDD to SSD, it will clone whole HDD (OS and Data) or (OS only) to SSD?

[@AhmadAlnuaimi]

Why I didn’t have the option OS base system appearing in the image bar as your video 3:58 I’ve Monterey 12.6

[@ninnymuggins2006]

This video saved my upgrade and my mini has new life! Thank you for posting. Upgraded my 2012 Mini to a 1TB SSD. First method I tried failed miserably but the cloning method shown here worked like a charm. Only difference in the process is that I had the new SSD already mounted in the mini before I started, with the old drive connected externally via SATA cable. The copy took 5 hours. Thanks again!

[@rinnin]

4:20 so is the OS X Base system the same as the "Recovery Partition"? Is this not the same as having a fresh install Mac OS X?

[@adamglasser-t1s]

brilliant clear explanation thanks - very helpful, great clear style!

[@michelworthey7473]

Without doubt the best instructive video I have seen. Thank You!

[@beefmaster_james]

Without a doubt the best viewer I have seen. Thanks for the comment.

[@tanako98]

Want to say thanks. I was about to drop 5k on a Mac Studio. But was cheaper to get a ssd and speed up what I have. 2014 i7 32gb of ram and this sped it up. I still have to open it up and put the actual drive inside the Mac!

[@beefmaster_james]

Fantastic. Definitely will run like new.

[@taurofr]

Thanks for the very clear instructions. I now feel confident enough to upgrade my mid 2012 MacBook Pro. First I'll install the SSD drive then check the improvement. Next purchase will be the RAM then a new battery.

[@taurofr]

Just a follow up. I replaced the HD’s with a SSD and the 2 8 Gb Simms and battery all Amazon. It’s amazingly fast now.

[@Jeramithehuman]

@@taurofr thanks for the update. I have the exact same thing. I’m currently waiting on the OS to download. Did you clone or did you start fresh? I don’t have anything to save really only use it to edit videos

[@carloscamarinha]

Thank you so much for your video. My iMac is working like new. Thank you man.

[@phuturephunk]

I'm using the exact same Mac and I am about to do this operation. The only thing I'm debating on is whether I want to wait around for it to move around 50 gigs of data through USB2, which is slow, but I may just go with it considering how easy you showed this to be. Well done!

[@EnoshKasra]

you saved my Imac bro, bless you🌺🙏🙏🙏

[@besmeltammo625]

great video, I do have a question my mac book pro 2011 the hard drive died and when I put a new drive SSD apple will not let me download lion the original Os, do you have a tutorial on have to solve such a problem? Thanks,

[@majorculture7159]

I have a newer 2020 iMac 27 inch.. just checking to see if it will work for me as well?

[@satwatchers]

Awesome video. Simple step by step instructions with excellent production value. So refreshing an very informative! Thank you.

[@JohnLo]

Best explanation. To the point. Much appreciated👍🏽

[@beefmaster_james]

yessir. glad it helped you out.

[@vaioyG]

This is simply the best and straight-forward steps provided to non-nerd iMac users to upgrade the speed of old iMac. Bravo ! One question I have is that, if I use the 1st method, could I stick to copying just the older Mac Operating system already in use in the internal hard drive ? Or I will automatically prompt to push installation of the latest OS ? Thank you once again for the clear instructions.

[@scalpermasterBruno]

Thanks for the video.... Is it possible to make this using a SSD NVME with a external adapter?

[@cambike]

Excellent video, nice pace and clearest video yet.

[@rbnjr]

Great video, do you have a video of M.2 drive being the new drive to be cloned and installed. Im guessing a adapter for m.2 is needed to usb and mac utilities process is the same. many people use M.2 drives with internal adapters.

[@lukecustance4338]

thank you, this worked , however my MBP late 2011 took a whooping 10hours to transfer 470GB to a 1TB SSD , i think i would have done a manual transfer with a fresh install if i knew this, or leave it over night , hope this info is useful for others

[@megalodon6108]

great video, i was getting the error 19 validation message before i came here 👍👍

[@accessvito]

Fantastic vid thanks Do you have info on the temp sensor? Thanks so much

[@henmolina]

Thank you for sharing this very useful information. It was very helpful for me...

[@DeJotaGamer]

Thanks! Really helpfull! For those trying for the first time, it will take about 5h (500gb) to complete.

[@CLAYNPOTTER1]

Thank you! I'm new to Mac file system (although my first owned computer was Apple IIe clone), and your video helped replacing HD to SSD on 2014 iMac.

[@marcustate3513]

I have a used iMac with a 2 T Fusion Drive. It’s formatted APFS. My older iMac which I’m wanting to clone is formatted OS Extended Journaled. Do I reformat the Fusion to Extended Journaled? Will this split the Fusion Drive?

[@John-pr2gw]

Excellent! Worked like a charm.. Thanks.

[@ZillaYT]

Thanks. For copying an old HD to a new but bigger HD, do I use same steps?

[@_shaunbrown_]

For a fresh OSX install on the SSD, what is the last step not shown in the video after OSX BASE SYSTEM??

[@almedogjurgji]

I wanted to ask if the disk utility or any other function in apple does give you the possibility to shrink the main drive that’s going to replace the older one (but not only in this occasion) into one ore more partitions and after that choose what you’re going to put into one partition and not the other, or install the macos into one choosen partition. Thanks

[@spades6893]

Hey I was doing the same procedure and in the middle of the restoring process my screen just turned black. I assume this means I also have another problem on hand but I was wondering if I should let it continue restoring. The blue light is blinking on the enclosure so something must be happening right? I might wait a good amount of hours and then shutdown and inspect the ssd’s content afterwards.

[@syedsameer1990]

You are awesome. Thank you for sharing such a valuable and useful information. You are precise, clear and steady. Thank you very much!

[@juanalcantara1449]

Hi after you install the clean macos in a new ssd. What is next step? Do you have a tutorial video for this?

[@Sandroran]

hi, can you tell me how long it takes to clone a 2tb hhd into a 2tb sata ssd or faster nvme m2 ssd. Thank you

[@joegonzalez805]

Works perfectly on my late 2015 iMac running Big Sur. Thanks!

[@unicomp5705]

I'm a Windows guy but this is a great vid on how to clone for Macs!!! :-) Mike in LA, Calif

[@michelleholden5180]

Can you clone in the other direction? I already put in the new drive and am having trouble installing the OS. I have the old drive and a usb connector.

[@liamrrh-s4273]

OKAY SO THIS IS THE BEST VIDEO ON THIS SUBJECT....LEGEND YOU GET ALL CAPS

[@beefmaster_james]

Thanks bro. The all caps is a great honor.

[@rinnin]

Did you actually delete the OS X Base system from the SSD ta 03:53? What happens if the SSD needs to go into Restore mode if that Base System has been erased?

[@yobroyobro]

Thanks! Now I can clone my Hackintosh’s MacOS Ventura HDD to my SSD

[@beewee7895]

can we clone form DVD official boot master Apple, to another DVD or Flashdrive? with this way

[@aniboibeats687]

Does the new ssd have to be the same gig size as the old one if I want clone it ? I have a 250 gig but I want to replace it with a 1tb ssd

[@KonstantinosLetsos]

After restarting and choosing disk utility and the new ssd there is not an option for “restore” any idea why? Do I have another option? Thanks

[@nkram2142]

Just ran into the same problem. You need to go to "Edit" on the menu bar and the Restore option will be there!

[@blendersandblox]

​@@nkram2142 #NORESTORE Thank you!

[@rayyip8464]

Hello , is this method able to clone the boot camp windows 7 partition to the new SSD ?

[@davidbolha]

I tried this method on a Mac Mini 2,1 (A1176), but the cloned OS X 10.6.8 (when SSD is inserted back into the unit) does not boot. 🤔😕😞

[@txtitans06]

Thanks a lot!! Trying to switch from HDD to SSD on my mid 2012 MacBook Pro

[@bijianwu5124]

so after clone the OS data to a new SSD, I will be able to use the new SDD as the main drive? even externally?

[@jakebevington7319]

Excellent tutorial. Easy to understand for me since this is my first Mac.

[@RedFalcra]

Great Vid. I have a particular situation. I have both a mac OS and Windows system on the same NVMe on my macbook air which I desperately need to change out. So my question is, if I clone the mac os will the windows partition and its content also get copied? Will it boot normally? Thanks!

[@Kla2024-s5t]

If I have mac and windows on the hdd. Can I transfer one then the other. Or will it overwrite the first one?

[@grupinfractionalorganizatp5003]

hi can be stored more mac software in one external ssd ? need to make partition ?

[@raminmehr4257]

explained well in details, thank you so much.

[@samiridrissi2857]

thanks a lot i understand every thing and i have the gadget adapter and everything but i can not open my mac by my self am afraid to do that i prefer to clone but give the remplacement to professionnel person

[@darrenhuynh2851]

Thank you very much your video is the easiest to install the new SSD I got one done successful but I got one more when I try to restart to get to MacOS Utilities by holding Commands and R key it come to open window like normal after the Apple logo show up the ask me my password then open the windows I bought this macbook from someone so don't know what they're do before. What's your advice? Thanks in advance!

[@DK_Cloud]

I need help lol.. i have the Ventura OS and I have Macintosh HD and Macintosh HD - Data to restore from.. would anyone know which one I should choose? Keep in mind I would like to have everything from my old HDD transferred over to my SSD. Thanks!

[@332ARA]

Does this clone the 2011 OS? Would it be better to download and current version? If I didn't care about old files or data do I just swap in the SSD?

[@stephendarcy7113]

When these upgrades are done, is it possible to update the imac 2008 fully?

[@oldgold1100]

I had a go after watching watching your brilliant vid at least a 100 time but I managed to complete the task. My mac is like new now. Thank you.👍 I have one question, hopefully you will be able to help me with this. I have two identical SSD's, one as the cloned operating system on and the other I'm using as Time machine on the old internal drive. How do I make this work with the new SSD operating system? I've plugged it in while using the new SSD operating system and the time machine says backup failed.

[@SilentStageGallery]

I’m curious in your link for the western digital ssd. Amazon has a previous generation and newest generation ssd drive. Which one should I choose for my 2010 27” iMac? Thank you

[@louisbryte5307]

bought a 1tb Lexar sata ssd and followed these instructions. Unfortunately, mine didn't work. Got a report saying "could not fix UUIDs for APFS volumes in container." Can I get any help with this please?

[@samgreenwood9595]

hey, thanks for the video its very helpful. do you still need to do the restart into cmd R? its seems to be fine just doing it without restarting, or am I missing something?

[@victorian5843]

I have a 2012 imac the hard drive is broken.Am I right in assuming I would not be able to clone from it as you have.I

[@robertoperaza2683]

why not use your recent SSD cloned HD as start up? it will run - load the system much faster, or am I missing something? Thanks.

[@fatimakarimjee1475]

Hi - I have a 2010 IMAC 21. I have upgraded the Memory to 12GB RAM and the IOS to Catalina. Since changing to Catalina the IMAC is very very slow. My storage is 935 GB out of 1 TB. Do I need to upgrade the storage to SSD? if so would that also be 1TB or would 500 GB suffice?

[@dmarian96]

This solution make a full backup with all programs ?

[@ProjectOverseer]

You've convinced me I can do this. My first attempt was disappointing. I bought a 1TB SSD that was just 20mb smaller than the 1TB hard drive in the iMac. It refused to copy because of this. Second go coming up. This time with a 2TB SSD ... I'll report back if it was successful.

[@007aarond]

I’m completely lost at the 2:50 minute mark. My drive has been formatted to everything you’re says minus the “journaled”. Can you please help? I was literally doing this side by side to your video and I’m stuck.