Adding an SSD to Current Build

[hackbuilder]

Hi All,

So I've got a pretty sweet Hack up and running flawlessly, with an OC'ed 2600k. It's quite similar to Ubermick's "Golden" Yeti. At the moment, I have a 2TB Seagate drive split between OS X and Windows (yeah, I know ), but all is working.

However, I'd like to move the OSX Operating System and applications to a new SSD. I'll most likely pick up a 128GB Crucial M4 in the new few days.

My question is the following, and I've searched for a while without finding anyone else doing exactly what I'm looking for:

I current have a partition on my 2TB HDD for OSX, where everything is located. I have almost 500GB files total (mostly music, pics, videos, etc.), so I want to move Lion itself and my applications to the new SSD, while keeping the larger files on the HDD. What is the best way to do this? I think I just need to keep the "Users" folder on my current HDD and then redirect my home directory through system preferences. Is that correct?

So, should I do a clean install of Lion on the new SSD, then copy over my applications to the SSD, and lastly redirect the user's folder to the HDD, or is there a better way, or even a better configuration? I'm open to ANY suggestions!

Thanks in advance for the help! This is truly an incredible community, and I wouldn't be running this insane computer without it.

 

[Going Bald]

If you want to move just the OS+apps to the SSD, use SuperDuper or CarbonCopyCloner to do a partial clone - in other words select just the files you want to be on the new SSD.

Do you have just the single user with passworded superpowers that you set up at first install or did you set up a secondary user for day-to-day use?

 

[hackbuilder]

If you want to move just the OS+apps to the SSD, use SuperDuper or CarbonCopyCloner to do a partial clone - in other words select just the files you want to be on the new SSD.

Do you have just the single user with passworded superpowers that you set up at first install or did you set up a secondary user for day-to-day use?

Just a single administrator account. Would you recommend otherwise? I transferred all my files to the Hackintosh with Migration Assistant from my Mac, and everything worked fine after running MultiBeast.

Also, for SuperDuper or CCC, would I just select all files on the hard drive, minus the Users folder? Most of my data is inside my home folder, so I think that should get everything.

Lastly, are there any performance decreases that result from copying the files rather than installing Lion fresh on the new SSD? I've read things about better performance with a new install rather than restoring from a backup, but I'm not sure whether it is worth it.

Thanks again for the help. I greatly appreciate it!

 

[Einsteiniac]

Yeah I second CCC.

Pick your 2TB Mac Partition as the source then your SSD as destination. There is an option to select files. Select everything except your home folder, do however copy the users folder.

Now once it is done you should have the files and hierarchy correct but just an empty users folder with the exception of the shared users folder. Now create a symbolic link to the home folder on your 2TB and reboot from the SSD. You should be in business.

Mark