Partition disk question for Mac users

[fidox]

Hi there !

I have one question for Mac users, since i'm only on Windows
I have Mac book laptop from my friend.
Inside it's an 750gb hard disk.
I'd like to upgrade this computer to ssd drive and more RAM.
Now, the easiest way would be to clone disk to disk.
I have Inateck station for doing offline cloning.

Now, here's my question.
In laptop , there's 750gb disk and 100gb is used.
I will add 256gb ssd into laptop.
I really don't want to install everything from scratch, but maybe try cloning first.
But, since laptop's disk is 750gb and i will have 256gb, is there a way to shrink 750gb to 256, since just 100gb is used and then try cloning.
So the device recognize just 256gb and not 750gb ?

Thanks

[valis]

Don't use the Inateck station, instead use software:

SuperDuper

CarbonCopyCloner

Both are free to use, Superduper can do more when purchased/registered as can CarbonCopyCloner, and while CCC is more 'fully featured' without registration SuperDuper will do exactly what you want. You'll need an external enclosure of some sort, so depending on the type of Macbook Pro you'll want either an external SATA/2.5" drive enclosure like this, or an NVMe enclosure like this one (note there's an SATA version of the last one, but I wouldn't buy an M.2 drive that's SATA only--NVMe all the way for speed & modern device support).

Once that's done, put the new drive in the enclosure, attach it to the machine and run CCC or SD and set it to clone the drive (it will make it bootable, copy all partitions, AND shrink the primary partition to fit which is what you need--just use data mode NOT block mode).

[fidox]

You'll need an external enclosure of some sort.

Isn't Inateck build for the same purpose, like for external enclosure too ?

Thanks Valis for your answer.
Well, i figured out , that this will take me much more free time , than i wanted to.

First, this macbook is about 8 years old.
User is "Standard", so whenever i want to install application from net, username and password shows up for administrator
access. And ofcourse, my friend doesn't know that username and password anymore, probably also cause he didn't set up this computer up.
I have tried different methods to run any app, but i'm not that familiar with mac.
I have search on net for some solution, but too complicated and time consuming.

I just wanted to test first a clone disk, cause i have one 128gb ssd to test before i'll install new ssd on that macbook.
So, like we were talking with my friend from the beginning, i'll do clean install then, which i don't want, but i guess it's a must
I'm windows user, so it's like punching in the dark and i don't like it at all.

[valis]

Inateck is external, but devices like that are usually built for plugging two identical drives into each other and cloning one to the other on the sector level. Maybe the newer ones support file system level ops so that they can migrate the data and resize partitions, but I typically have only used such things to do lower level duplication and changing the partition size later...or in your case, perhaps shrinking as much before cloning, then expanding to absorb the extra space once the SSD is in place would work.

Anyway, I wouldn't know if it supports HFS+/AFPS even if that was the case, and I do know that SD & CCC both support all of the above fine, and are mac-centric. Plus they will do the 'resize' automatically by simply only creating a partition as large as the drive supports by default.'

What model is the Macbook? Or a serial will work...

[fidox]

What model is the Macbook? Or a serial will work...

MacBookPro8,2
C02GW221DV7P

I have tried shrinking the partition with disk utility , but after 1 hour, there was an error doing this.

I have this one :
https://www.inateck.com/uk/inateck-fd2005-black.html

[valis]

MacBookPro8,2
C02GW221DV7P

8,2 tells us 15", early 2011. Interestingly I am doing a drive upgrade for a friend on an 8,1 at the moment. Serial lookup on that model (note this link triggers a captcha) shows you have the 2.4 or 2.5 Ghz i7 model. Upgrades will be the same for either (here's OWC's page for that model).

In any case that lets me confirm SATA not NVMe (which started in 2012 with the Retina 15" Macbook Pro's). USB3 enclosures which will help you migrate run $5-10, I realize you already have the inateck on hand, but it's just not suited for your particular task (cloning a larger drive to a smaller drive).

I have tried shrinking the partition with disk utility , but after 1 hour, there was an error doing this.

I have this one :
https://www.inateck.com/uk/inateck-fd2005-black.html

I would need the specific error to know more, but I was offering that as a potential method to accomplish your tasks, not necessarily a usable method. After looking at the model for that unit in more detail...

The inateck.com page states:

Code: Select all

Attention
-The target disk must be larger than the source disk.

So again I suggest a different enclosure, as this isn't even clear it can clone identically sized drives (I'll bet it can), and likely can't do what I was outlining above anyway.

Really, Superduper is 1 click to do this...

[fidox]

Thanks Valis for your time to answer.

I thought that this would be easier approach.
I mean, it's not that hard at all, but in terms of 'just' testing.
I guess i will do clean install with new ssd drive, which was the plan from the beginning.

Which OS for macbook is now the newest and do i'll need any serial numbers to install or ?
Can i boot and run setup from usb key ?

[fidox]

But, I'm still thinking about cloning.
I wanted to try with Inateck station and with programs you suggested.
The problem is that every single application i download and want to install, OS wants me to type user name and password.
Now, friend's account is 'Standard' and not 'Admin'.
He don't know that user name and password, he said, he must check where could be, but he don't remember anything about that.

[valis]

That's because they're accessing the system on a level that requires elevated permissions to access the necessary resources (file system level and below). They're going to touch *every* part of the system drive that you're cloning, and that's a security breach for an app that has no elevated privs.

Feel free to do as seems best to you, my experience with units like the Inateck station you have is limited to bulk duplicating drives for deployment on replicated systems, and at one point in time they made a good choice for cloning a drive upgrade too, which I think is their primary intended audience. It's just that Macrium Reflect (win), SuperDuper/CarbonCopyCloner (Mac) and even tools like Clonezilla have evolved to be beyond simple.

If you choose to go the clean install route know that's my preference when possible. I'm thankful that we don't need to do it every 6-9 months like in the NT4/Win98/Win2k/XP era to keep a machine running smoothly and feeling 'peppy'. Mac isn't quite as bad, but a system moved with Migration Assistant or a drive swapped from a previous system always have tons of additional console (system log) spam.

So on that note I think High Sierra is the highest unmodded OS install you can do. I say unmodded because there are people that patch installers and system files to enable higher OS system support, but that's nonstandard and I don't recommend it for primary usage. Fwiw I have 2 machines here on El Capitan (10.11.6), one on High Sierra (10.13.x) and one on Catalina (10.15.5). I think those are the 'best' in terms of stability and least amount of issues, and each is best matched to the machine of the corresponding era, as is the software that runs on it. I'd never run 2020's best DAW on my 2001 era Xeon rig that runs Scope 7 just fine, and similarly if you don't ask too much of that laptop, it should run great with the SSD upgrade.

[fidox]

I think High Sierra is the highest unmodded OS install you can do.

Thanks !

Do i'll need any serial number for installing High Sierra ?

My friend has a task or homework to search everything he has for this laptop.

I can't change account to Admin and try to install any application, without username and password.
They don't remember anymore, how it was, when they purchase this laptop, so , they are kicking in the dark,
just like me, first time working with Mac.
I don't know what i'll need when installing , if, clean install.

Hardware upgrade is the easiest task for this laptop

[valis]

No serial needed for install.

If you’re upgrading to an SSD and doing a fresh install, there’s not much homework to do. Why? When the spinning drive is out into a $10 usb controller not only can your friend still access the files on it, he’ll even be able to still boot to that drive by selecting it in system properties as the boot drive.

[fidox]

No serial needed for install.

If you’re upgrading to an SSD and doing a fresh install, there’s not much homework to do. Why? When the spinning drive is out into a $10 usb controller not only can your friend still access the files on it, he’ll even be able to still boot to that drive by selecting it in system properties as the boot drive.

Thanks, cool !

I have purchased that controller,
also when needed in the future for any laptop i may work on it

[valis]

[fidox]

I'll ask another question about one laptop here,
cause i don't want to open another thread just for that

I have another laptop from colleague, i don't know, guess it's laptop month for me , hehe.
He have one cheap laptop for his son.
It's really pretty basic.
Windows 10
HP - https://support.hp.com/sg-en/document/c06443872
with 32 GB eMMC drive.
I have read that this laptop has just RAM and wi-fi hardware removable.
So no upgrade for disk.
Anyway, who is installing (company) 32gb in laptop those days ???
If it's not possible inside, what are my options or his options outside the laptop ?
Maybe 128gb USB 3.0 key ? Or any other solution, suggestion ... ?
Will ordinary USB key be enough to run some windows applications or is it too slow ?

[fidox]

Oh, i just saw that this laptop has also SD card slot and maybe it's possible to install application to external SD card.
Just, how fast SD card should be. Maybe 170mb/s enough ?

[valis]

Most Applications need to be in the "Applications" system folder. While there are ways to relink this or create a symlink, not recommended for your whole Applications folder imho.

SDCards aren't the highest reliability either, that slot is best used for transferring files imho. SSD's are cheap!

[fidox]

SSD's are cheap!

Thanks Valis !

I have found one video article, how you insert ssd mSata pci-e modul, but then you must remove wi-fi modul.
So, it's an option with mSata PCI-E III.

Not sure, why people (colleague) don't look specifications before purchasing stuff.
I mean 32gb by default, haha. I thought first , it was a joke.
This laptop was very cheap, so i told him, now you can see , what you get for little money

[valis]

Using the wifi slot will technically work because it's an M.2 PCIe slot, but it's likely going to be slower than PCIe 3.0/4.0 by a wide margin, and might even be 1.x (wifi & BT don't need more bandwidth for the generations used in that macbook pro). I didn't find that info on a cursory search, but would probably seek that out before I ditched my wifi/bt card for an NVMe SSD.

Straight throughput for NVMe is superior, but the speed gains from HD>SSD come in terms of the latency that a spinning HD needs to start to respond to a new request (rather than one it's been serving and has all the right sectors queued up already). Moving from a 2.5" SSD to NVMe certainly helped me when it comes to loading massive applications, but the difference in terms of responsiveness is negligible which is what really matters.

Anyway compared to a year ago, 500GB-1TB 2.5" SSD's are 1/2 to 1/3 the cost so I'm buying them like hotcakes for older machines. For a new machine, I'd just get something with 2 NVMe slots