How to Clone an Existing Drive

Written By: Mike
  • Comments: 33
How to Clone an Existing Drive

Difficulty

Easy

Steps

15

Time Required

3 - 4 hours

Introduction

This guide will go through the process of cloning your existing software, OS, and data to a new hard drive.

(SuperDuper is now compatible with Big Sur & Monterey.)

NOTE: With the introduction of macOS Catalina, certain steps in this guide are out of date.

IMPORTANT: Cloning the hard drive is not recommended if you have a Mac that uses a recovery partition (MacOS 10.7 - present) or internet recovery (2011 - present). Instead, to move your data to a new drive, first create a backup of your existing drive. Then, either use internet recovery or create a bootable external drive so you’ll be ready to install macOS onto your new drive and migrate your data afterward.

If you are happy with your existing operating system installation and would simply like to upgrade your hard drive capacity, you can clone your existing hard drive to your new drive.

To clone a hard drive, you will need a way to connect the second hard drive to your Mac. Our 2.5" Hard Drive Enclosure or one of our Hard Drive Upgrade Kits works great for cloning your drive over.

To clone your hard drive, we recommend a program called SuperDuper!, by Shirt Pocket Software.

The following instructions assume that you’ll be using SuperDuper! and the 2.5" hard drive enclosure to clone onto a new 2.5" drive. If you are using a different setup, your installation process may be somewhat different.

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    • Before you begin, look at your hard drive's ports and make sure that it has the right connectors:

    • Narrow data port

    • Wide power port

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    • Use the included screwdriver to remove the two Phillips screws.

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    • Slide the plastic tray out of the aluminum housing.

    it doesn't slide out

    jbechtel1 -

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    • Set the drive in the plastic tray and align the drive ports with the tray socket.

    • To prevent strain on the enclosure socket, lay the drive as flat against the tray as possible.

    • Carefully push the drive into the tray socket to seat the ports.

    • Press the drive's raised edge down into the plastic tray.

    • If the drive edge catches on the foam block, the drive is not fully seated against the tray socket. Continue pressing the drive into the socket until it clears the foam block.

    It is helpful to use something thin like a credit card as a shoe horn here - while the back edge is still raised, insert a thin card between the edge of the drive and the foam block, then push the drive edge down and slip the card out. This will allow the end of the drive to sit flush against the block without any overlap or mashing of the block. It also eliminates the need to keep pressing or forcing the edge of the drive to fit.

    Charles Bradford -

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    • Flip the drive tray over.

    • Use the a Phillips screwdriver to install the four mounting screws (included in the kit) to secure the drive to the tray.

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    • Slide the tray back into the aluminum housing.

    • Reinstall the two Phillips screws to secure the tray.

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    • Power on your Mac and wait for it to fully load.

    • Plug the enclosure into your Mac's USB port.

    Bonjour

    Pas d’alimentation pour le SSD !!!?

    cdlt

    legruel -

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    • Under the Go pulldown menu, select Utilities.

    • Open Disk Utility from the Utilities window.

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    • Select your new hard drive from the left column in Disk Utility.

    • If the new drive is not showing up, disconnect the enclosure and check if the hard drive is properly connected to the enclosure.

    • Select the Erase option near the top row of buttons.

    • Select a name for your new drive, and select "APFS" for the format.

    • Warning: Pressing the erase button will erase the entire contents of the drive. Make sure you have selected the new hard drive!

    • Press the erase button.

    • This process may take up to 10 minutes, so be patient.

    • Quit Disk Utility once the erase is complete.

    When I try to partition, I message comes up saying "file system formatter failed". What do I do?

    Cameron Matthews -

    I formatted my Samsung SSD 860 with format “APFS” before I saw this tutorial instructing me to select “Mac OS Extended (Journaled")” for the format.

    craigrhee -

    On latest MacOS (from High Sierra on) you should use APFS. This is mandatory on Catalina, but in this case the system update itself converted the existing drive from MacOS Journaled to APFS.

    Stefano Fratini -

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    • Download and install SuperDuper!

    • Under the Go pulldown menu, select Applications.

    • Open SuperDuper!

    With the newer OS-X & MacOS releases its wise not to use 3rd party cloning software.

    A better approach is to use Apple supplied Migration Assistant during the OS install on a fresh drive, or you can do it later its located in the Utility folder.

    Sadly, cloning apps don't create the hidden partition the OS installer does and if you are not careful you can wipe it out with the cloning app.

    An alternative is using Disk Utilities Imaging tool which allows you to create an image file that you can then reuse over and over again if you have to manage multiple systems this offers a very quite way of cloning a standard set of config & apps.

    Dan -

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    • In the copy pulldown menu, select your current drive.

    • In the destination pulldown menu, select the new drive.

    • In the method pulldown menu, select "Backup—all files".

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    • Press the "Copy Now" button.

    • If prompted, provide your password.

    • Click "Copy" when warned about erasing the drive.

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    • Wait for the drive to copy (this could take several hours if you have a lot on your hard drive).

    • When prompted for registration by SuperDuper!, either choose "Register" to purchase the software or "Later" to register later.

    • After the copy is complete, click "Ok" and quit SuperDuper!

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    • At this point, your new hard drive should be a clone of your existing drive and ready to install.

    • However, we recommend testing the cloned drive before physically swapping the drives. This can be done by attempting to boot from the new cloned drive through the USB enclosure.

    • Keep the enclosure connected to the computer and restart the computer. Hold down the "option" key as it reboots until a boot option menu shows up.

    Everything worked up until I was trying to boot from my SSD. I figured it out though if anyone else is having the same problem in 2023. Right after quiting SuperDuper! Click apple > system preferences > start up disk > click lock to make changes > select new SSD > restart.

    Gabriel Yalung -

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    • Select your new hard drive from the boot option menu.

    • Wait for the computer to boot up to verify if it works properly.

    • Your new hard drive is now ready to be installed in your computer.

    Can an Apple Time Machine be used to facilitate the cloning of a new hard drive, in LIEU of the $28.00 SUPER DUPER! applications program? My aged MacBook Pro 1297 17” is running OS10.11.6 and I am clueless as to whether or not the original hard drive is even partitioned: After 11 years, it may be time for a new SSD…

    John Birrell -

Conclusion

Remove your new hard drive from the external enclosure and install it in your computer. Installation instructions are available for a variety of Macs.

Author

Mike

Member since: 01/11/10

14240 Reputation

24 comments

This guide was straightforward and helpful along the way when I replaced my hard drive! My only comment is that this should be a link in the "MacBook Pro 13" Unibody Early 2011 Hard Drive Replacement" article, since the Youtube videos link to each other, but the articles do not. Thanks for all your help with these fantastic guides!

Melissa Smith -

Great except you extol the use of the SATA Wondercable but you don't sell it hen I followed the link to eBay, it listed dozens of various adapters. I did not see this SATA Wondercable.

Disappointed with the answer

jimkidd1 -

Wow! Thank you Mike.

Everything went very well with a big bonus. My older version of Photoshop does not work with the newer Mac operating systems. Now that I installed a new 1TB hard drive, I can upgrade OS if I want. Then I can use the old drive in an internal enclosure replacing the DVD running the old OS X keeping all of my older Adobe apps!

Ifixit rocks!

charlesspowell -

If I have a BootCamp partition, will it clone that as well?

BuckNYC -

Hi BuckNYC,

As far as I know, SuperDuper will not clone the BootCamp partition. You will have to use something like Winclone to do that.

Arthur Shi -

Worked fine. Only issue is that before installing the new drive, you need to set it as the boot disk (System Preferences, Startup Disk) Do this when you’ve got it connected to USB (after Step 12) - when you tested that it’s bootable. (I missed this and had a fraught few hours until Dan helped me out.)

Stephen Babbage -

Great tutorial Mike! Made it a lot easier to swap my old HD for an SSD. Many Thanks!

Olivier Meyers -

Glad to hear it! :)

Mike -

Does this tutorial also work, if I want to switch from FusionDrive to SSD?

daniel.wernitz -

Yes - Make a clone on the new SSD first using an external housing, start up from that disk, then split the internal Fusion Drive in the Mini in its HDD and SSD components using Terminal. Reformat the internal SSD and HDD. Shut down, and replace HDD with the new “external” SSD. The SSD-part of the Fusion drive becomes an extra internal SSD. For fastest performance, put OSX on the faster ex-Fusion SSD and datafiles on the newly installed SSD.

Wannes -

IMPORTANT: Cloning the hard drive is not recommended if you have a Mac that uses a recovery partition (MacOS 10.7 - present)

Why?

Chad R. Larson -

Dunno - Bombich.com Carbon Copy Cloner (my go-to clone app for years) clones them perfectly and has done so for years.

Wannes -

I am looking to upgrade my 2012 hard drive to an ssd. I would prefer the easiest fastest way of migrating or copying my entire installation to the new drive. Is super duper cloning suggested or is there a better way?

abrahamw88 -

So is Super Duper not recommended even though they’ve updated to include Catalina support? If they aren’t, what’s another method as I’ve read that Time Machine backups may not work as well for complete replacement of the drive? I was about to purchase it, but if anyone has bad experiences with it, please let me know before I do?

Info from Super Duper:

v3.3.1 now available!

The latest version of SuperDuper! is faster, better, fully compatible with macOS Catalina (10.15) - in fact, it's compatible with macOS 10.10 and later, has Smart Wake, Smart Delete, Notification Center support, additional control capabilities, and improves many aspects of the user experience. Of course, it still includes great features like snapshot support, APFS recovery volume support, Backup on Connect, Eject after Copy, Sparse Bundle support, lets you store a bootable backup alongside Time Machine backups, copy Time Machine backups to other drives, and run scheduled copies on demand. As with every update, we've polished and improved many other aspects as well. (A full list can be found by selecting Help > Revision History.)

mythicalcaesar -

Easy …. Informative and much appreciated…!

Allen Russell -

Anyone else having problem with SuperDuper! on BigSur 11.1 ? Tried twice to run it and after 19 hours nothing.

Also tried to boot in recovery mode and clone from there but got broken seal error which seems to be a BigSur issue.

Constantine -

My understanding is that SuperDuper does not work currently with Big Sur (I experiences similar results as Constantine). I used Carbon Copy Clone successfully (they also have a free trial version) that is able to do the file conversion required for Big Sur.

John Dwyer -

Funktioniert SuperDuper! auch um eine größere 1TB (eingebaute) Festplatte auf die neue 500GB SSD zu klonen?

an walt -

Zumindest gibt es dieses Video, wo jemand erklärt, wie das geht.

Fabian Neidhardt -

Does it also work from 1TB to external 500GB SSD?

an walt -

Isn't Apple's Migration Assistant the alternative to SuperDuper?

tldoumi -

Why should I use SuperDuper over dd?

michael.s.corigliano -

dd will not "quite" work - if the two drives are different size (the second drive needs to be same or larger size of course), then it seems you have difficulty with modifying the new drive partition table with Disk Utility (anyway that's the situation I'm currently in and trying to solve). Also it duplicates the UUID values, and these are supposed to always be unique I think. Maybe there are ways to fix both these issues, and am now trying to find out if it's possible.

-bob

anonymous 97 -

Does not appear that SuperDuper will handle the case where there are multiple partitions on a drive and let you duplicate everything in one step. And not sure if APFS volumes will work or not. Any other suggestions for how to duplicate a drive with multiple partitions (some HFS, some APFS, some data only, some recovery partitions, basically any possible scenario including BOOTCAMP partitions)? Thanks ....

-bob - Nov 9, 2022

anonymous 97 -