Best way to clone a hard disk

[nookiemonster]

Hi Guys

I just started up another thread about buying an SSD for my MacBook. Once I get it, I want to be prepared with the knowledge of cloning a hard disk? Is there any software that will clone my MacBook's current HDD to the new SSD? I don't want to just copy. I want to make the SSD bootable with OS X Mavericks as well.

Please tell me how I should do this? I searched through the forum and came across recommendations for ddrescue? Is that what I should use?

[warnerr]

For drives that are working properly there are many products. Many SSD's sold at retail include a software cloning product in the box. I use Paragon Hard Disk Manager 14. Symantec and Acronis also have commercial versions available. Free versions exist- see Hiran.info for an example.

[lcoughey]

You will need to boot from a USB drive or the OS install disk.

1. Then load disk utility, create an HFS+ partition on the new SSD with a different name than the HDD (it will all be overwritten when you are done)
2. Use the disk utility restore tab, choosing the HDD partition as the source and the SSD partition as the destination

I'm going by memory, but that is the process in a nutshell.

Have fun!