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How to clone a Hard Drive or a Solid State Drive on a Mac

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You will be using Carbon Copy Cloner for this guide. Cloning a Hard Drive or a Solid State Drive is about as easy as it gets with CCC. Sadly, CCC is only available to macOS users and is not compatible with Linux or Windows. Sometime soon I will create a guide for Windows and Linux users.

What you need

  1. How to clone a Hard Drive or a Solid State Drive on a Mac, Downloading Carbon Copy Cloner: step 1, image 1 of 1

    • Download Carbon Copy Cloner from the Bombich Software Website.

    • Install it onto your macOS based computer. You will need administrator privileges later, as well as to move CCC into the Applications folder on your computer.

    • You can download it here.

    • I used CCC 5 for this process and if the user interface changes in the future I will promptly update the guide.

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  2. How to clone a Hard Drive or a Solid State Drive on a Mac, Preparing for Cloning - Source Disk: step 2, image 1 of 1

    • Once you are at the main screen of Carbon Copy Cloner, insert your SATA based SSD/SSHD/HDD into your enclosure and plug it into your Mac.

    • Under Source Disk, click your current HD/SSD. For example, my current drive is named "Macintosh SSD".

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  4. How to clone a Hard Drive or a Solid State Drive on a Mac, Preparing for Cloning - Target Disk: step 3, image 1 of 1

    • Next, select your Target Disk. My target disk is named "Ubuntu". Your disk can have any type of name ex. "Pie".

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  5. How to clone a Hard Drive or a Solid State Drive on a Mac, Cloning: step 4, image 1 of 1

    • Lastly, click Clone.

    • Enter your administrator Username

    • Enter your administrator Password

    • Then finally, click OK

    • This process can take up to 4+ hours depending on your disk size, so have some patience!

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After you finish, install your new Hard Drive/Solid State Drive and test if it works. If it does not, try cloning again. If it still does not work after that, leave a comment and I will try my best to support you.

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I have used CCC for years and years. It is an excellent program!

When upgrading MAC OS to a new version, I always clone a drive before starting the upgrade.

Mal - crwdns2853112:0crwdne2853112:0

What if you have several volumes on each disk ? Does it scan the entire structure and boot options ?

Fran Werttt - crwdns2853112:0crwdne2853112:0

CCC clones per volume, not per disk. So you have to clone each volume on their own, how many are bootable?

Jelan -

I have tried cloning my 2012 Mac book pro with a vector ssd sata111, my Mac does not see the disk when I connect with usb or caddy, this is getting frustrating anyone has the same problem where you mac not seeing the ssd drive

thank you

Peter

Peter - crwdns2853112:0crwdne2853112:0

What about using Restore on Disk Utility read on web that this in itself a cloning method don’t have to go for 3rd party apps

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