I am running a late 2012 Imac. Never opened the machine to replace the harddrive. I did the same you did : got me a 50 dollar ssd, installed macos on it, and now i am using the internal 1tb drive as my data drive. Runs like this for years and still holds up in 2022!
I have opened up the iMac and replaced the HD to a 1tb SSD and upped the RAM from 2x4gb to 2x8gb. It’s probably faster than it’s ever been and boot up is now only 34 seconds. I bought the SSD from crucial for €115 and the RAM upgrade kit from OWC for $100. It’s a great kit that comes with various tools and new seals for the screen. I got a friend to help me which is advisable. Thanks for making these videos and also for replying to my questions.
This is by far the best way to speed up Imac and easiest. FYI: I tried install directly on SSD but IMAC couldn't see SSD after rebooting. Instead I did a fresh install on existing hard drive inside Imac. Cloned it to SSD then reboot. Imac sees the SSD and I successfully boot from it. Now the system is amazingly fast on Catalina. Thank you !!!!
Wow! Unbelievable! My 2013 iMac is running as fast as my 2019 iMac! I spent hours trying to work out from Apple and their "assistants' only to go around in circles with complicated procedures to download OS and boot from the SSD. If I tried to install OS from the app store it would just say my computer is up to date. I was about to give up when I came across your video. OMG, what a breath of fresh air! So simple. Thank you so much. The only hitch I had was my lack of knowledge. When I went to clone a prompt poped up saying that the format on the SSD is ExFAT and do I still want to proceed'? The CCC also has a banner advising to do it, and explaining that the APFS would operate 2.5 times faster than ExFAT. I reformatted the SSD to APFS ( by choosing erase in the disc utility and selecting AFPS, the utility erases the ExFAT and automatically installs the Mac APFS.)
And you can also use this to test new operating systems when they're released, or to have "multiple macs" for different tasks, just installing on external SSD's.
Thank you, this is an excellent video and has saved me a fortune. My iMac 2017 is now super fast again after being rendered virtually unusable by the internal HD
Amazing videos (this and the original), thanks so much for the update! If I have 400 GB capacity used on a late 2015 model 21" iMac with a 1 TB HD, can I still Carbon Copy over to a 500 GB SSD or does the target drive need to have the same/more capacity than the original? Thanks again!
I need to do this to My '09 27" iMac. It has a 4tb platter drive and 32g of ram. It's quick....for an old horse....it could be quicker. 2.66ghz core i5 certainly could be updated. I'll keep You posted on when I do this. Thanks!!
I did this and my Mac is unbelievably fast now, I am going to open up the Mac and replace the hdd with the ssd and increase the RAM from 8gb to 16gb this weekend, looking forward to the finished mac 👌🏻
I have opened up the iMac and replaced the HD to a 1tb SSD and upped the RAM from 2x4gb to 2x8gb. It’s probably faster than it’s ever been and boot up is now only 34 seconds. I bought the SSD from crucial for €115 and the RAM upgrade kit from OWC for $100. It’s a great kit that comes with various tools and new seals for the screen. I got a friend to help me which is advisable. Thanks for making these videos and also for replying to my questions.
I noticed at about 5:05 in the video, you mention that you already formatted the new SSD before beginning the cloning operation. How do you do that? And what settings did you use when formatting? Thanks!
Thank you so much for this. Excellent step by step instructions. On my iMac (2013 Catalina) I didn’t need to drag over the fish icon; it automatically had CCC in the list and it was checked, ready to go. Nice.
This is EXACTLY what I've been looking for! Everywhere I looked I just had people saying to clean up your cache, or using apps and all that nonsense, but this is solution I was looking for...especially since I have an old 256GB SSD in my old Macbook Pro that I'm not using atm! Thank you so much!
thank you thank you thank you! feels like i have a brand new iMac! also recently upgraded the RAM which was SUPER easy and am feeling very accomplished today! thanks again!
Really great video this, thank you. My wife's parents iMac is slowing right down now (2017 i5) and it takes ages to boot and open apps etc... So I'll order a 256GB SSD and get that sorted as a bootable drive and they can use the internal 1TB HDD as their storage etc. Thanks for the simple, straightforward instructions 👍🏼
Watching this after my iMac has the same issues.. Only problem is I have already spent £2k on the new iMac Mini M1 + external memory bundle. Oh well still at least this GREAT tutorial will save the old iMac from the dump, and find a new life elsewhere at home.
The Mac mini M1 2020 is a fantastic machine, you won't necessarily regret it as it'll still be much faster than any iMac on the market right now. I recommend selling the iMac as a broken device on eBay - ua-cam.com/video/Ob-Zi9MKEa4/v-deo.html
Why use an enclosure at all? Personally, I prefer instead use a SATA to USB Cable - USB 3.0 to 2.5” SATA III Hard Drive Adapter so the enclosure is not blinking at me incessantly.
Thank you Mate for this video. I am a little afraid to upgrade to a SSD but your video has helped me a lot. As a UA-camr myself I subscribed to your channel because I know how important it is to subscribe to the other's channel. Thank you for the video again!
I found a 21.5 " mac that someone threw away that was in really nice condition. And after erasing the hard drive and reinstalling Catalina it took about 90 seconds to boot. That's when I realized that the hard drive was going bad and was the reason why they threw it away. So I happened to have a Samsung T7 2 TB external drive and decided to use it instead of opening up the Mac to replace the hard drive. The difference was day and night. Boots in about 20 seconds and my programs open instantly. I owned this same exact Mac many years ago and even new it wasn't as fast as this one is now.
You can even use this with USB 2.0. I've always used this trick with my old iMac to avoid opening it, and now, with my 2014 mac mini. You get faster boot times (it goes without saying it's better with 3.0 (or thunderbolt if you can afford it)) and faster apps launching. I use Super Dupper to clone the external SSD to the internal HD once a week to have a backup of the system, but you can also use the internal HD for any other thing. A 2014 mac mini is useless due to the super slow HD, but once you boot from an external SSD it's pretty fast. By the way, not every enclosure is the same in terms of speed, sometimes a few bucks make a big difference.
Jan 22,21 update. Big Sur version not allowed to clon all volumes from the original hard drive in the iMac. Even if you use a carbon copy cloner . The SSD clon can boot the iMac but l don’t know if the big warning notice talking about of several issues will be a big problem. I am regular person not too much knowledge about it. For this reason l did not erase my original hard drive .
My imac late 2013 can't detect the new Samsung SSD evo 870. 1TB. I remove the mechanical drive install the ssd drive, when i stared the imac there was only a ❓ mark blinking for hours and hours. What i did wrong ? Please help me 🆘 😭
Very helpful video, clearly explained. Thanks! I have a new iMac with a 512GB SSD. I want a larger external SSD, not to boot from but to store hundreds of GB of data, photos, etc so they load even quicker than from my external HDD.
SSD as an external drive would run faster and more reliable than a traditional hard drive, however at a relativey high cost. That being said, SSDs are much cheaper these days than they used to be.
Followed your guide... worked fine. However... I can´t format my internal drive. Not from the recovery and not from inside the system. SIP disabled. Ideas?
The last step didn’t work. I got a screen with my Macintosh HD only and a dropdown select network. could not proceed and had to start the Mac the old way.
be aware this does not work with the current copy of carbon copy cloner. The external drive is not bootable after this it doesnt copy all the files over. The out the box options shown here were used but on the last step holding down option no additional external boot drive.
I'd like to try this with my late 2013 27" iMac. At this point I can only run Catalina. If I boot from the SSD drive, will it allow me to UPGRADE my OS to something later?
Hopeful when watched video. Tried this with iMac 2017 but have same problem as others , new bootable SSD not visible when attempt to make it the target. Is there a solution ?
Just got back from Apple store where they told me that the HD was playing up , and that it was very expensive because of labour costs ??, Saw you video and intend to do it myself, I'm getting on in years so if there's anything I should avoid could you tell me please , ie what sizeSSD ? Cheers
So awesome! Parts on order. Can't wait to see how this helps improve my Wife's iMac performance. Will update comment once parts received and process completed!
@@Andytizer ok. Ordered parts recommended yesterday. They arrived 2 hours ago, and went to work with your video running on my phone. I'm no tech guy at all but followed step by step. Couple of minor changes noticed with the latest version of the cloning software but got through that with ease. Machine is super responsive! So happy to not have to upgrade. Works exactly as you show in the video. Thanks so much!
hi. i did this in another way and my mac model 2013 andi installed catalina .but the system freezes in the middle of working for noparticular reason .how can i fix it?
Thanks Andrew! I just followed your links and placed the order for the enclosure and SSD (I went one size SSD bigger though just incase I needed more storage). Your video seems super simple - but I'm literally IT "challenged", ok if I ask questions here if I can't quite get it to work at first (or 9th) attempt? Thanks again!
Sure it's fairly simple hopefully my video helps! I also remade this video again here in-case any of the steps aren't clear: ua-cam.com/video/IB0SUcCAMig/v-deo.html
My external drive doesn’t show up as a bootable disk. Checked the info section in disk utility and it says it’s not bootable, any way of fixing this? Don’t think MacOS copied over
I don’t have the benchmarks for this but you are really limited by the USB3 UASP interface rather than the SSD speed itself, so I’d expect them to perform the same.
Dear Andrew. I did the copy clone transfer to the ssd, but it had noticeably less on it than the disc. 133gb as opposed to 177gb. And when I rebooted holding down the opt key the ssd didn’t show, only the disk did. I noticed on your video that you had two icons of the ssd when you did boot/opt. Before the transfer I erased the ssd and named it MacSSDExt. Can you help please. I’m stuck!
@@094122 I phoned Apple support and they helped me sort it out. The cloner had not copied the OS accross. Apple showed me how to download the OS first on to the SSD and make it the start up disk too. Then I restored my data from Time Machine. Thereafter my iMac worked much faster. You will be able to find Apple support phone number by searching online. I would give you it but it may stop my comment getting thru. Good luck. Let me know how you get on.
I wonder if somebody can help me out... I just cloned my mechanical drive onto a 2TB external SSD. Booted the iMac (2011) and it's slower than ever. I didn't erase the mechanical drive. I wanted to be sure everything copied over first. It's my understanding that if I'm booting from the external drive, the old internal drive will just sit dormant and make no difference in the performance. Right?
I attached a ACASIS 40Gbps SSD Enclosure with a NVME SSD to my 2015 imac just to make sure it would read the SSD. it didn't. The Acasis has a Thunderbolt 3 to 2 adapter config which may be the issue. I know the SSD enclosure works on an M1 MBP. I'm sure the cables an adapter are in working order. Any idea what the issue is?
Great Video, Andrew - Thanks for the info. If you have Imac and Macbook, would you be able to use the same SSD to boot from? (ie. If I was working from home, I could use the imac with the SSD. If working out of the house, I could use the SSD with the Macbook)
Maybe a dumb question - but if you can clone an SSD like this, can you also clone a gamer pc to use the iMac as a monitor essentially? To boot from the tower?
Question, can I clone the Mac hd to an ssd then open the iMac and replace the original hd with the clone ssd and use disk utility to put the ssd as my main boot drive ?
I got a Sabrent Rocket Thunderbolt drive for my 2019 iMac that had a fusion drive and it's silly fast now compared to before! Now I"m trying to find the same kind of solution for my old 2011 iMac but it's a lot harder to figure out how to do that. Any ideas? I know I can do it via USB but that is a lot slower than Thunderbolt (like 5% as fast).
Hello Andrew. Great video! I’ve tried this on my MacBook Pro 2017 and after copying all the files and booting from my external drive, the screen goes black after the loading bar finishes. Any fix? Thank you
Thanks for the great video, Andrew. I have a late 2012 iMac and found other videos to add an external SSD (replacement to internal) drive. I wonder if you think the (left-inside HD) could be used as an extra TimeMachine backup drive?
It will work on a MacBook Pro (or any Mac), but would be very awkward to carry it around. People do it on iMacs because they are hard to open and don't get moved much. With a MacBook Pro you would just pop the bottom off and swap the drive in 5 minutes.
hi, i just attempted this and when rebooting, the ssd desnt appear. just the internal drive. is there something i mightve missed or ant reson why this might be happening? I followed the instructions up to that point with no issue. any help is appreciated, thank you!
Thanks for the great video. I am considering this as my existing hard drive is failing. It has nearly 500gb of data on it and the existing hard drive, like yours is 1TB. Do you advise purchasing a 1TB sdd drive for the new external drive? Thanks
![How To Fix Slow iMac 2012-2020 External SSD [Updated Guide]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/IB0SUcCAMig/mqdefault.jpg)
![How To Fix Slow iMac 2012-2020 External SSD [Updated Guide]](/img/tr.png)
It's now November 2024. I just followed along to this video and worked perfect. Thanks for sharing. Hello from Canada
I am running a late 2012 Imac. Never opened the machine to replace the harddrive. I did the same you did : got me a 50 dollar ssd, installed macos on it, and now i am using the internal 1tb drive as my data drive. Runs like this for years and still holds up in 2022!
This video saved me about $1000 because I was fully prepared to purchase a new Mac. Feels like I have a brand new computer! Thanks for the help!!
I’m was about to do the same lol. Those new M1 chip is tempting, but gonna hold on to my 2014 iMac a bit longer now.
I bought a M1 Mac Mini LOL
I have opened up the iMac and replaced the HD to a 1tb SSD and upped the RAM from 2x4gb to 2x8gb. It’s probably faster than it’s ever been and boot up is now only 34 seconds. I bought the SSD from crucial for €115 and the RAM upgrade kit from OWC for $100. It’s a great kit that comes with various tools and new seals for the screen. I got a friend to help me which is advisable. Thanks for making these videos and also for replying to my questions.
This is by far the best way to speed up Imac and easiest. FYI: I tried install directly on SSD but IMAC couldn't see SSD after rebooting. Instead I did a fresh install on existing hard drive inside Imac. Cloned it to SSD then reboot. Imac sees the SSD and I successfully boot from it. Now the system is amazingly fast on Catalina. Thank you !!!!
My sad won’t show up on boot either
Wow! Unbelievable! My 2013 iMac is running as fast as my 2019 iMac! I spent hours trying to work out from Apple and their "assistants' only to go around in circles with complicated procedures to download OS and boot from the SSD. If I tried to install OS from the app store it would just say my computer is up to date. I was about to give up when I came across your video. OMG, what a breath of fresh air! So simple. Thank you so much. The only hitch I had was my lack of knowledge. When I went to clone a prompt poped up saying that the format on the SSD is ExFAT and do I still want to proceed'? The CCC also has a banner advising to do it, and explaining that the APFS would operate 2.5 times faster than ExFAT. I reformatted the SSD to APFS ( by choosing erase in the disc utility and selecting AFPS, the utility erases the ExFAT and automatically installs the Mac APFS.)
Thank you! I followed this and it worked perfectly! My old 2012 imac is blazing fast now!🔥
Man really want to thank for such a great video , my machine is on steroids now . Really appreciate your work man. Good luck.
And you can also use this to test new operating systems when they're released, or to have "multiple macs" for different tasks, just installing on external SSD's.
Yes this is the real tip! You can use older software that requires the older OS too. Or even boot into Linux or something like Batocera.
Thank you, this is an excellent video and has saved me a fortune. My iMac 2017 is now super fast again after being rendered virtually unusable by the internal HD
Amazing videos (this and the original), thanks so much for the update! If I have 400 GB capacity used on a late 2015 model 21" iMac with a 1 TB HD, can I still Carbon Copy over to a 500 GB SSD or does the target drive need to have the same/more capacity than the original? Thanks again!
Thank you!! This saved me a bunch of money as I was getting ready to buy a new Mac. I can’t believe how much faster my 2012 Mac is…
I need to do this to My '09 27" iMac. It has a 4tb platter drive and 32g of ram. It's quick....for an old horse....it could be quicker. 2.66ghz core i5 certainly could be updated. I'll keep You posted on when I do this. Thanks!!
a sppedtest of the SSD external after the last boot would have been nice to see...
Andrew. I followed your instructions and rejuvenated a late 2012 iMac. Thank you!
Glad I could help!
I did this and my Mac is unbelievably fast now, I am going to open up the Mac and replace the hdd with the ssd and increase the RAM from 8gb to 16gb this weekend, looking forward to the finished mac 👌🏻
I have opened up the iMac and replaced the HD to a 1tb SSD and upped the RAM from 2x4gb to 2x8gb. It’s probably faster than it’s ever been and boot up is now only 34 seconds. I bought the SSD from crucial for €115 and the RAM upgrade kit from OWC for $100. It’s a great kit that comes with various tools and new seals for the screen. I got a friend to help me which is advisable. Thanks for making these videos and also for replying to my questions.
I noticed at about 5:05 in the video, you mention that you already formatted the new SSD before beginning the cloning operation. How do you do that? And what settings did you use when formatting? Thanks!
Thank you so much for this. Excellent step by step instructions. On my iMac (2013 Catalina) I didn’t need to drag over the fish icon; it automatically had CCC in the list and it was checked, ready to go. Nice.
Glad I could help! This video has been up for nearly a whole year now and I’m glad it’s helped lots of people 😀
Thank you so much! You're a life saver! My iMac is on steroids now! lol
same here man! Thanks andrew! 2014 Imac running on Big Sur! brought back from the dead. beast mode activated.
Glad I could help, these SSDs breathe life into even 7 year old desktops!
I did exactly this and it made a huge difference to my Mac, thank you Andy.
Glad it worked!
Thank you, gonna try this this week. My iMac 1TB hdd is full and very slow! This looks like great advice.
Mine is totally empty and soooo slow - regret buying it! Hope this works!
This is EXACTLY what I've been looking for! Everywhere I looked I just had people saying to clean up your cache, or using apps and all that nonsense, but this is solution I was looking for...especially since I have an old 256GB SSD in my old Macbook Pro that I'm not using atm!
Thank you so much!
thank you thank you thank you! feels like i have a brand new iMac! also recently upgraded the RAM which was SUPER easy and am feeling very accomplished today! thanks again!
Thank you, Andrew. I did my cloning yesterday following your great video. Look forward to seeing more of your videos.
Glad I could help, I hope it runs much faster now!
CCC is well worth paying for a license, it's saved my ass multiple times - and you can always backup the ssd to the internal drive
Really great video this, thank you. My wife's parents iMac is slowing right down now (2017 i5) and it takes ages to boot and open apps etc...
So I'll order a 256GB SSD and get that sorted as a bootable drive and they can use the internal 1TB HDD as their storage etc.
Thanks for the simple, straightforward instructions 👍🏼
Watching this after my iMac has the same issues.. Only problem is I have already spent £2k on the new iMac Mini M1 + external memory bundle.
Oh well still at least this GREAT tutorial will save the old iMac from the dump, and find a new life elsewhere at home.
The Mac mini M1 2020 is a fantastic machine, you won't necessarily regret it as it'll still be much faster than any iMac on the market right now.
I recommend selling the iMac as a broken device on eBay - ua-cam.com/video/Ob-Zi9MKEa4/v-deo.html
Why use an enclosure at all? Personally, I prefer instead use a SATA to USB Cable - USB 3.0 to 2.5” SATA III Hard Drive Adapter so the enclosure is not blinking at me incessantly.
Thank you Mate for this video. I am a little afraid to upgrade to a SSD but your video has helped me a lot.
As a UA-camr myself I subscribed to your channel because I know how important it is to subscribe to the other's channel.
Thank you for the video again!
Glad I could help!
@@Andytizer you are awesome. Happy to be' here!
I found a 21.5 " mac that someone threw away that was in really nice condition. And after erasing the hard drive and reinstalling Catalina it took about 90 seconds to boot. That's when I realized that the hard drive was going bad and was the reason why they threw it away. So I happened to have a Samsung T7 2 TB external drive and decided to use it instead of opening up the Mac to replace the hard drive. The difference was day and night. Boots in about 20 seconds and my programs open instantly. I owned this same exact Mac many years ago and even new it wasn't as fast as this one is now.
Thank you very much! I just placed my order for the items you so thoughtfully listed with links.
Great Video Thank You!!! liked & subbed
You can even use this with USB 2.0. I've always used this trick with my old iMac to avoid opening it, and now, with my 2014 mac mini. You get faster boot times (it goes without saying it's better with 3.0 (or thunderbolt if you can afford it)) and faster apps launching. I use Super Dupper to clone the external SSD to the internal HD once a week to have a backup of the system, but you can also use the internal HD for any other thing. A 2014 mac mini is useless due to the super slow HD, but once you boot from an external SSD it's pretty fast. By the way, not every enclosure is the same in terms of speed, sometimes a few bucks make a big difference.
which enclosures do you recommend?
If i use this method. Can i still use my internal storage as a data drive? Or drive that i put some of my files?
Hello! A little help please! I cant find my external drive in start up .only the internal drive is in the choices
Is it partitioned/formatted right for OS recognition? Is the external drive powered and working properly? check both and you should see it.
Nice thank-you, finished installing new 480gig SSD Way faster now
Jan 22,21 update. Big Sur version not allowed to clon all volumes from the original hard drive in the iMac. Even if you use a carbon copy cloner . The SSD clon can boot the iMac but l don’t know if the big warning notice talking about of several issues will be a big problem. I am regular person not too much knowledge about it. For this reason l did not erase my original hard drive .
Wish this was a simple task, then I would go for it.☹
Great informative video, thank you for showing us.👍
I've followed and used your video successfully. My question is how to upgrade the operating system from Catalina?
Perfect, it worked on my iMac 2013, the difference is huge x10, now I can use it again. Gracias!
So when I did everything, booted it back up, holding the option key, only the Internal HDD came up as an option? Even after cloning and everything
I have the same problem, please help
Thank you Andrew,
Great and professional tutorial. Congratulation.
My imac late 2013 can't detect the new Samsung SSD evo 870. 1TB. I remove the mechanical drive install the ssd drive, when i stared the imac there was only a ❓ mark blinking for hours and hours. What i did wrong ? Please help me 🆘 😭
Wish there was a solution like this to upgrade the ram.
Very helpful video, clearly explained. Thanks! I have a new iMac with a 512GB SSD. I want a larger external SSD, not to boot from but to store hundreds of GB of data, photos, etc so they load even quicker than from my external HDD.
SSD as an external drive would run faster and more reliable than a traditional hard drive, however at a relativey high cost. That being said, SSDs are much cheaper these days than they used to be.
Will all passwords, apple ID's and settings be transferred as well?
It looks fantastic if so
Followed your guide... worked fine. However... I can´t format my internal drive. Not from the recovery and not from inside the system. SIP disabled. Ideas?
Thankyou worked just as displayed! Brilliant!
Im going to try this. I have a 2017 iMac that is really slow
The last step didn’t work. I got a screen with my Macintosh HD only and a dropdown select network. could not proceed and had to start the Mac the old way.
I have the same issue with samsung T7 , is there another video how to solve step 2 rebooting?
Can you then reformat the internal hard drive to use as simple storage?
Thanks for the video question i thought 3.1 USB needed to be used for boot up on Imac 2017 versions
I am running a IMAC 2020 but I cannot get it running with the extern Samsung HDD. Did Apple blocked it for the 2020 version?
be aware this does not work with the current copy of carbon copy cloner. The external drive is not bootable after this it doesnt copy all the files over. The out the box options shown here were used but on the last step holding down option no additional external boot drive.
Hi Great instructions, will this work on a 2008 iMac. Thanks for any help.
I'd like to try this with my late 2013 27" iMac. At this point I can only run Catalina. If I boot from the SSD drive, will it allow me to UPGRADE my OS to something later?
Thank you, did this on my 2012 imac
I love your voice and accent. Informative video.
Thanks I'm glad the video was useful!
Hopeful when watched video. Tried this with iMac 2017 but have same problem as others , new bootable SSD not visible when attempt to make it the target. Is there a solution ?
What’s the max read and write speed
well with the new vesion of CCC this all went badly. Need a new Video. Looks like I'll be starting over
I bought everything you have in this video the speed of my old imac but the hardrive doesn't seem to be showing up on the computer . can anyone help ?
Thank you !!!!! so much !!!! this tutorial help me with a problem of my boss computer problem.
Terrific explanation! Will a 2TB Samsung ssd work....I have the same model Imac
Yes any SATA SSD will work, any size.
Any advice on using Time Machine with an external HD? I assume I should disconnect that once I have a current backup?
Thank you. it works amazing
Just got back from Apple store where they told me that the HD was playing up , and that it was very expensive because of labour costs ??,
Saw you video and intend to do it myself, I'm getting on in years so if there's anything I should avoid could you tell me please , ie what sizeSSD ?
Cheers
So awesome! Parts on order. Can't wait to see how this helps improve my Wife's iMac performance. Will update comment once parts received and process completed!
Great lemme know!
@@Andytizer ok. Ordered parts recommended yesterday. They arrived 2 hours ago, and went to work with your video running on my phone. I'm no tech guy at all but followed step by step. Couple of minor changes noticed with the latest version of the cloning software but got through that with ease. Machine is super responsive! So happy to not have to upgrade. Works exactly as you show in the video. Thanks so much!
hi. i did this in another way and my mac model 2013 andi installed catalina .but the system freezes in the middle of working for noparticular reason .how can i fix it?
How do you make sure you're using carbon copy cloner version 5 and not 6?
Thanks Andrew! I just followed your links and placed the order for the enclosure and SSD (I went one size SSD bigger though just incase I needed more storage). Your video seems super simple - but I'm literally IT "challenged", ok if I ask questions here if I can't quite get it to work at first (or 9th) attempt? Thanks again!
Sure it's fairly simple hopefully my video helps! I also remade this video again here in-case any of the steps aren't clear: ua-cam.com/video/IB0SUcCAMig/v-deo.html
My external drive doesn’t show up as a bootable disk. Checked the info section in disk utility and it says it’s not bootable, any way of fixing this?
Don’t think MacOS copied over
Its work with usb Stick 3.1 to?
How does the of speed of this particular drive compare to a samsung T5?
I don’t have the benchmarks for this but you are really limited by the USB3 UASP interface rather than the SSD speed itself, so I’d expect them to perform the same.
Hi was wondering will this speed up garage band on my iMac ?
Dear Andrew. I did the copy clone transfer to the ssd, but it had noticeably less on it than the disc. 133gb as opposed to 177gb. And when I rebooted holding down the opt key the ssd didn’t show, only the disk did. I noticed on your video that you had two icons of the ssd when you did boot/opt. Before the transfer I erased the ssd and named it MacSSDExt. Can you help please. I’m stuck!
same story, is it solved?
@@094122 I phoned Apple support and they helped me sort it out. The cloner had not copied the OS accross. Apple showed me how to download the OS first on to the SSD and make it the start up disk too. Then I restored my data from Time Machine. Thereafter my iMac worked much faster. You will be able to find Apple support phone number by searching online. I would give you it but it may stop my comment getting thru. Good luck. Let me know how you get on.
@@sweedlepipe thanks I’ll give it a try !
I wonder if somebody can help me out... I just cloned my mechanical drive onto a 2TB external SSD. Booted the iMac (2011) and it's slower than ever. I didn't erase the mechanical drive. I wanted to be sure everything copied over first. It's my understanding that if I'm booting from the external drive, the old internal drive will just sit dormant and make no difference in the performance. Right?
I attached a ACASIS 40Gbps SSD Enclosure with a NVME SSD to my 2015 imac just to make sure it would read the SSD. it didn't. The Acasis has a Thunderbolt 3 to 2 adapter config which may be the issue. I know the SSD enclosure works on an M1 MBP. I'm sure the cables an adapter are in working order. Any idea what the issue is?
Hi there. Is there any hope to use the Thunderbolt 2 port instead of USB?
Great Video, Andrew - Thanks for the info. If you have Imac and Macbook, would you be able to use the same SSD to boot from? (ie. If I was working from home, I could use the imac with the SSD. If working out of the house, I could use the SSD with the Macbook)
Yes as long as they are Intel Macs and they both support the same macOS version.
Thanks, Andrew!
Can I do this through thunderbolt ?
Yes but Thunderbolt is very expensive and it won't feel much faster.
Would this work with a late 2009 iMac?
Maybe a dumb question - but if you can clone an SSD like this, can you also clone a gamer pc to use the iMac as a monitor essentially? To boot from the tower?
Question, can I clone the Mac hd to an ssd then open the iMac and replace the original hd with the clone ssd and use disk utility to put the ssd as my main boot drive ?
I got a Sabrent Rocket Thunderbolt drive for my 2019 iMac that had a fusion drive and it's silly fast now compared to before! Now I"m trying to find the same kind of solution for my old 2011 iMac but it's a lot harder to figure out how to do that. Any ideas? I know I can do it via USB but that is a lot slower than Thunderbolt (like 5% as fast).
Hey I was just wondering what do you mean by formatting?
Hello Andrew. Great video!
I’ve tried this on my MacBook Pro 2017 and after copying all the files and booting from my external drive, the screen goes black after the loading bar finishes.
Any fix? Thank you
whats the speed of the external
THANK YOU SO MUCH ❤️
What file format should I choose for SSD drive?
TIA!
can I use SATA 3 "480 GB"instade of 240 GB ?
This is much simpler than opening the computer to instal a new drive but the it will probably run slower than an internal SSD, right?
Only a tiny bit slower.. it'll be much much faster than the internal HDD it originaly came with.
Thanks for the great video, Andrew. I have a late 2012 iMac and found other videos to add an external SSD (replacement to internal) drive. I wonder if you think the (left-inside HD) could be used as an extra TimeMachine backup drive?
Yes you could! I recommend wiping the internal drive and then setting it up as a Time Machine backup.
will i need a 500 gb ssd cuz my mac has used 400 gb
What brand ssd you suggest ?
And does this work on MacBook pro as well?
Thank you
It will work on a MacBook Pro (or any Mac), but would be very awkward to carry it around. People do it on iMacs because they are hard to open and don't get moved much. With a MacBook Pro you would just pop the bottom off and swap the drive in 5 minutes.
My sad won’t show up on boot either
hi, i just attempted this and when rebooting, the ssd desnt appear. just the internal drive. is there something i mightve missed or ant reson why this might be happening? I followed the instructions up to that point with no issue. any help is appreciated, thank you!
Open disk utility and check if it appears or you can mount it there first, I'm not an expert but is worth a try.
Thanks for the great video. I am considering this as my existing hard drive is failing. It has nearly 500gb of data on it and the existing hard drive, like yours is 1TB. Do you advise purchasing a 1TB sdd drive for the new external drive? Thanks
Yes SSDs need at least 10% free space to work efficiently so if you have 500GB of data a 500GB SSD isn’t enough, 1TB is the way to go.