Copy Clone to new fusion drive

[fred]

Hi Dave,

I was wondering if I have my internal 2011 imac drive backed up as a bootable clone and then I added an internal SSD to the iMac and set it up as a fusion drive with the current internal drive, would I then simply copy the cloned drive back to the new fusion drive set up and let the system work out where to put stuff?

[dnanian]

Yes, the Fusion Drive deals with that stuff at a very low level, automatically. Restore with Smart Update, of course.

[fred]

Hi Dave,

OK it looks like I'm definitely going to install a 512 SSD in my iMac and fuse it with the 2TB.

So regarding the way that fusion works as far as I understand it, at first it fills up the SSD before using the HDD after which it proceeds to shift data around in an intelligent way.

So... obviously the OS must go on the SSD and I would also want all my apps on the SSD, or everything that is in the app folder because I have x-plane has 60GB of global scenery which I would want to stay on the SSD.

Therefore my question is this... After fusing the drives if I then use SD to copy a bootable clone back to the fused drive, what order does SD copy the files over?

I presume it copies the OS first which would go on the SSD, but does SD then copy the Apps folder, or is there other stuff that goes on before SD copies the Apps.

I hope the general drift of this question is clear.

regards

F

[dnanian]

The idea is to let the OS manage all this stuff, Fred. It'll move what makes the most sense to the SSD. It's all manage internally... the SSD doesn't have anything on it , really, that you'd "put" on it...

[fred]

Hi,

Yep, I will be letting the OS do the managing but I'm sort of asking a question just for my own interest about when SD copies my clone which is now about 1tb back to my new what will be 2.5TB fusion drive, I'm wondering what order stuff will come over.

Does SD first copy the system files and then the application folder? Is there a hierarchy of order that SD uses to clone back to the internal.

I think I remember reading a long time ago that when copying a clone back to a HD that SD effectively defragments as well because it takes the opportunity to reorder any fragmented files.

So I assume that SD has some sort of logical order for cloning a complete bootable system. I was wondering what that order actually is? I understand that however the data comes across that over time the OS will reorganise things, but I'm just wanting to have a bit of an idea how SD will send it over. I hope I'm making sense here.

[dnanian]

No, we're going to use the 'natural' order of the files. The OS isn't necessarily first. I wouldn't worry about it - your Fusion drive will eventually figure it out.

If you want to "force" the OS first (which won't guarantee its placement on the Fusion drive), install it to the drive, then migrate from the backup during the first boot (see the "I've got a new Mac..." FAQ).