I know this video is 6.5 years old as I write this but all this applied equally back then: As long as your Mini's old drive was working and you could boot from it, there was no need to use a second Mac and Target Disk Mode. You could have directly connected the external SSD to your Mini and cloned using Disk Utility or a good third-party application such as Carbon Copy Cloner. There's nothing strictly wrong with what you did, it was just unnecessarily complicated and added the requirement of a second Mac into the mix, something many people won't have access to. Another thing to consider is that a typical inexpensive SSD in an external enclosure with USB 3.0 is still way WAY faster than any spinning platter HDD regardless of its interface (internal or external). Since it's kind of a PITA to get at the drive bays in a Mini it might be better to just leave the internal drive or drives alone, use a USB 3.0 enclosure instead of a a slow USB 2 enclosure (or use a Thunderbolt enclosure if you want but while it's theoretically multiples faster than USB 3.0 in actual practice it barely makes any difference), and then boot from the external. You can use the internal drive for emergencies if your external ever goes bad or to use as a Time Machine or other backup drive or just to keep big bulk files that don't benefit from speed such as movies, TV shows, music, and pictures.
Hi, if you had installed the SSD directly to your Mac Mini via USB 2.0, could you not just have made the cloning from Disk Utility with the Restore feature?
Thank you for the instruction. Thank you also for taking time to prepare this video for the general public, without such generous people like you for transfer of technology, we'd have struggled, a lot to achieve cloning process.
I want to transfer my data from my existing mac mini to a 2019 mac mini. My existing mac mini has a video problem and that prevents my old mac mini from booting up. The monitors have a green/light green vertical stripes and the boot up process gets about half way and then stops. The old mac mini then will try to re-boot over and over. My question is, can I transfer the data to the new mac mini without having a monitor connected to the old mac mini? Thanks
Let's assume I have an iMac running Windows 7 only and six exactly the same Macs with empty HDDs. Would this method work with the Windows 7 installation as well?
I don't have an enclosure. So can I instal the new SSD, and then hook my Mac mini to another computer, press T to put it in target mode, and then load the software on the new SSD from the Mac I'm hooked up too. I do I just have to get a freaking enclosure?
Does anyone know if this technique will copy over the 'purgeable data' mine sitting at an extra 240GB. Just can't get rid of it, and don't want it to copy over on a smaller SSD.
In Disk Utility, select the volume, not the disk. While there could be other reasons you were hit with that error, selecting the disk instead of the volume is the most common reason.
Wow, I took out my hard drive, replaced it with my Kingston solid state drive and have put my hard drive into an enclosure...now I need to put my hard drive back and put the solid state drive into the enclosure and copy my hard drive data into the solid state drive... Enfuriating running around circles
No you don't. Just boot from your old hard drive in the external enclosure, run Disk Utility to formate the new SSD, then clone over your old drive to your new drive.
I know this video is 6.5 years old as I write this but all this applied equally back then:
As long as your Mini's old drive was working and you could boot from it, there was no need to use a second Mac and Target Disk Mode. You could have directly connected the external SSD to your Mini and cloned using Disk Utility or a good third-party application such as Carbon Copy Cloner. There's nothing strictly wrong with what you did, it was just unnecessarily complicated and added the requirement of a second Mac into the mix, something many people won't have access to.
Another thing to consider is that a typical inexpensive SSD in an external enclosure with USB 3.0 is still way WAY faster than any spinning platter HDD regardless of its interface (internal or external). Since it's kind of a PITA to get at the drive bays in a Mini it might be better to just leave the internal drive or drives alone, use a USB 3.0 enclosure instead of a a slow USB 2 enclosure (or use a Thunderbolt enclosure if you want but while it's theoretically multiples faster than USB 3.0 in actual practice it barely makes any difference), and then boot from the external. You can use the internal drive for emergencies if your external ever goes bad or to use as a Time Machine or other backup drive or just to keep big bulk files that don't benefit from speed such as movies, TV shows, music, and pictures.
I have an IMAC with dual boot mac and windows, can I clone it and install it in Mac mini? will it work or not ?
Hi, if you had installed the SSD directly to your Mac Mini via USB 2.0, could you not just have made the cloning from Disk Utility with the Restore feature?
Thank you for the instruction. Thank you also for taking time to prepare this video for the general public, without such generous people like you for transfer of technology, we'd have struggled, a lot to achieve cloning process.
Will this work with MacOS and Windows on the same Mac??
I have an IMAC with dual boot mac and windows, can I clone it and install it in Mac mini? will it work or not ?
Is this option still a viable solution to backup a Mac mini?
Can you clone your ssd in a MacBook to an external with this method???
I want to transfer my data from my existing mac mini to a 2019 mac mini. My existing mac mini has a video problem and that prevents my old mac mini from booting up. The monitors have a green/light green vertical stripes and the boot up process gets about half way and then stops. The old mac mini then will try to re-boot over and over. My question is, can I transfer the data to the new mac mini without having a monitor connected to the old mac mini? Thanks
Let's assume I have an iMac running Windows 7 only and six exactly the same Macs with empty HDDs. Would this method work with the Windows 7 installation as well?
Can my Macbook Pro act like the Mac Mini in the same way? (Hooked up to my iMac, that is said.)
My question - when you clone the drive, does the invisible recovery drive ALSO get copied?
I don't have an enclosure. So can I instal the new SSD, and then hook my Mac mini to another computer, press T to put it in target mode, and then load the software on the new SSD from the Mac I'm hooked up too. I do I just have to get a freaking enclosure?
Thanks! Can you do this on reverse l?
If i do this. Will it fix the “apfs inverter failed” that i get when i just use my mac mini?
Awesome, exactly what I'm looking for. Thank you.
Very helpful video! Just subscribed.
Does anyone know if this technique will copy over the 'purgeable data' mine sitting at an extra 240GB. Just can't get rid of it, and don't want it to copy over on a smaller SSD.
Two computers AND an external drive case?
One problem is that you have to have " your other mac" or ?
can you use thunderbolt in both machines for faster transfer?
Thanks for your video.
He did that but he had the new drive in a USB 2.0 enclosure. You can't move data faster than the slowest link in the chain.
error 254 when try to clone.... now what :(
In Disk Utility, select the volume, not the disk. While there could be other reasons you were hit with that error, selecting the disk instead of the volume is the most common reason.
Can i clone my HDD directly to my external ssd?
Yes.
Is it possible to install a SSD in yo Mac mini then connect to a macbook via thunderbolt and then clone the drive?
I'm wondering the same thing.. Did it work?
What USB port is that? I want one of those.
Adrian Mendoza anker usb hub
very cool!
Wow, I took out my hard drive, replaced it with my Kingston solid state drive and have put my hard drive into an enclosure...now I need to put my hard drive back and put the solid state drive into the enclosure and copy my hard drive data into the solid state drive... Enfuriating running around circles
No you don't. Just boot from your old hard drive in the external enclosure, run Disk Utility to formate the new SSD, then clone over your old drive to your new drive.
Ok thanks :)
Cool
coz you not
3rd
First like and comment! Yay!
BLaH Blah im freaking First!No one cares