Upgrade Boot/System Drive (Existing is Full)

[AsensoryMusic]

I need to upgrade my existing main HDD, which is now out of space. I have to make the choice between old school and SSD, and then figure out how to migrate all my data over to the new drive, as well as the system software, etc. I figure I need to go 2 TB in size. Any good tutorials, advice, etc.? I've installed drives before, which is pretty much a breeze, but this project is more involved. Thanks in advance!

The system is:
Mac Pro 4,1 upgraded to 5,1
3.33 GHz hex-core Xeon
32GB RAM
OSX 10.12

[mikehalloran]

I have to make the choice between old school and SSD,

Good grief, no you don't.

Your decision is between a SATA III SSD (up to 8TB) and an NVMe on a PCIe card. If you intend to remain on Sierra, then forget the NVMe—it requires MacOS 10.13 or later. A SATA III SSD will actually perform like SATA II on your machine but will still give you a major performance increase.

Mechanical HDDs are for Time Machine and are available up to 18TB.

A reasonable upgrade is a slow 2TB NVMe blade like the Crucial P2 on a PCIe card for your System, all Apps and current work files (your machine cannot utilise the extra speed of a fast blade so no reason to spend the extra money). Your VIs, iTunes and non-active files sit on a SATA III drive—as big as you can afford (think of the future).

Before installing, deactivate all internet authorizations if you can—not necessary with DP

Installation is easy. Install the drive, install the correct OS, boot from the new drive, use Migration Assistant to pull everything over. If installing a blade, there are some extra steps. You do not need cloneware for this—it is not necessary, adds extra steps and, if installing a blade, can get in the way.

If going with a big SATA III drive, after installing the MacOS, swap positions with your current drive before running Migration Assistant. Some of your licenses may be tied to the bus ID inside your Mac and this will save you time later.

When done, run the following Terminal Command: sudo trimforce enable to enable TRIM on the SATA III drive. If booting from a blade, TRIM is enabled by default but not your VIs drive if an SSD.

[HCMarkus]

As Mike suggests, the difference between a mechanical HD (spinner) and ANY form of SSD is, arguably, life-changing. So definitely forget about spinners except for backup purposes.

In my experience, the real-world difference between SATA SSD and PCIe SSD for boot drives is nominal. Although I'm running both types of SSDs in my Mac Pro, I am using a SATA SSD as my Boot Drive and have repurposed my NVMe PCIe SSD as my Project Drive, where the PCIe SSD's ability to stream big chunks of data is better utilized. As Mike notes, unless you want to move your Mac to High Sierra or Mojave, you won't be able to run an NVMe PCIe SSD.

For a really simple installation, just put a brand spankin' new 1 to 4 TB SAT SSD in your optical bay and connect to the second SATA/Power connector that is just sitting there ready for use (unless you have, for some reason or other, two optical drives installed). Then follow Mike's advice... install a fresh version of your preferred OS and use Migration Assistant to port over everything else. OTOH, this might be a great time to start fresh with a clean install of everything. MOTU advised me awhile back that they disfavored Migration Assistant for driver installation. I've set up Boot Drives successfully both ways.

Whatever approach you use, I'd recommend that you clone your Boot Drive to a backup once the migration.installation is concluded. I always keep an up to date backup of my Boot Drive; it has saved me from the tedious task of Boot Drive setup on more than one occasion.

Finally, if you have a Metal GPU on hand, you may want to take this opportunity to take your Mac Pro to the last officially-supported OS; Mojave. Or beyond, using Open Core. Head over to MacRumors.com forums, the Mac Pro section, and peruse the sticky threads at the top of the page.

[AsensoryMusic]

Great info, thanks for the reply. Would the drive linked below be a good choice?

https://shop.westerndigital.com/product ... DS200T2B0A

[AsensoryMusic]

HCMarkus (et al),

In order to utilize the optical bay (which, I presume, is necessary due to the shape of the SSD), does that mean I lose the existing optical drive, or is there room for another one in there? I could look, but I am not in front of it now.

Any good recommendations for a reliable SSD, I linked the WD blue above, which seems like a popular drive.

[HCMarkus]

Plenty of room for an SSD. I don't have an optical drive in my Mac Pro anymore (Use an external), and so just removed the entire Optical Cage and threw three SSDs in there (I have a SATAIII PCIe card which provides extra SATA ports; I split one of the SATA power ports to power all the drives.)

If you have an optical drive in there, I'd suggest moving it from the stock upper position to the lower position in the Optical cage and using the drive as a shelf upon which your SSD can rest comfortably. If you move your Mac Pro around as often as I (meaning never), there is no need to fasten the SSD in place.

Although I haven't used any myself, reports indicate the WD Blue drives are just fine; good bang for the buck.

[HCMarkus]

https://www.anandtech.com/show/9799/best-ssds

PS: Stay away from QLC drives (Samsung QVO)... TLC (like the WD Blue, Samsung EVO and Crucial MX500) is great.

[AsensoryMusic]

One additional question ... the drive I have to replace is the main system/boot drive. Mike mentioned that the best bet after installing the drive and installing the OS in it is to swap the SSD out and place it in the first bay, to avoid issues with changed bus IDs. I'm assuming those bus ID issues could be an issue ... I wonder how much a pain that would be to resolve.

[AsensoryMusic]

Well, as they say, no good deed goes unpunished.

I simply cannot figure out how to install the correct OS on to the machine. I received and installed the SSD into the optical bay. No other place seems to work because I don't have the right enclosure to install it into one of the regular HDD bays.

I formatted the SSD in Disk Utility, no problem.

Now for the head scratching... I found a version of OSX 10.12.6, Sierra, which is what I am running. I ran the installer and was told that I could not install it onto any drive other than the current boot drive/drive that currently (already) has OSX on it. I learned about creating an install USB drive ... so I removed everything from a thumb drive I have, reformatted it in DU and followed the instructions involving createInstallMedia and the command line. I have no problem using bash, so I typed sudo, dragged the right stuff into Terminal, etc, and continued to get a long-winded error that. I believe, is related to the path or something. I tried that about 5 times and gave up.

Next step was to use Internet Recovery ... but my machine will not boot up into Recovery mode (COMMAND + R after restarting or pressing button, or COMMAND + OPTION + R). I just boots up as normal ... And yes, I did eventually realize that I'm using a bluetooth keyboard, and disabled bt and plugged the kb in with the wire, still no good.

Seems like I have to use an install disk, but that will mean installing the OS that was originally on the computer ... geesh, I don't even know who was president then ... in fact, that might be what Internet Recovery does as well, which is probably not ideal.

What do people do in this situation, besides give up and hire an IT guy.

[bayswater]

I think it is OSXDaily that has published articles on how to create a bootable USB drive that installs OS X versions. There's a download, and a terminal command involved, and in theory you end up with a USB stick that you can boot from that can install OS X on volumes other than the boot drive. I've used this process successfully from time to time, but can specifically recall doing it for OSX 10.12.

[artfarm1]

Here's an article/how-to on creating a bootable USB OSX installer from MacWorld that worked for me when creating installers for High Sierra.

https://www.macworld.com/article/320467 ... drive.html

Plus, I had no problems with the OSX versions I obtained from

https://www.downloadmacos.com/

The only tricky part was pointing/clicking on the correct links! Go slowly and look for what you need.

I owe them for saving my computer's life, and for upgrading other Macs in the household.

[mikehalloran]

What MacOS are you looking to install?