Advice and information for installing a SSD into MBP with fresh Lion

Question

Tomorrow I am going to buy a OCZ Vertex 3 (240GB) and then I want to upgrade my MacBook Pro (late 2011) and install a fresh Lion system without copying any files with SuperDuper etc. Now I would like to know, whether it is necessary to flash the SSD via Windows (as I've sometimes...) before plugging it in to the MacBook.

Furthermore I would like to know whether I can install Lion without the need to pay the 23€ in the "AppStore of the Installer" (wanted to create bootable USB stick with Lion Installer on it - otherwise I must do the "Packages"-hack to prevent from online-check/download) as I have bought my MacBook only a few days ago with Lion shipped on it.

Last but not least, any further advice or things I must pay attention of?

EDIT: I found the Lion Recovery Disk Assistant which seems to be vera cool... however I want to know whether I can reinstall Lion on my new SSD without having to log on to the AppStore which was necessary for a time to check whether I have purchased Lion properly. Can anyone tell me whether this will work how I expect it to do so?

Answer 1

In the case of OCZ, it will make your life monstrously less insufferable if you ensure the drive has the latest firmware revision before installing it in your Mac, as OCZ does not support OS X (they provide a mixed bag of solutions that require a decent level of computer expertise and Linux distributions which are rickety at best). They make great hardware but have deplorable Apple support even after all these years.

You can view the latest firmware for your drive here. The utility requires either Windows or Linux and a working networking connection. It is also recommended you back up your data as the update could wipe it, so naturally it is best to do on a fresh drive. v2.1.5 has been out for a while so it is quite likely you won't need to update. Support forums are available in case you do.

If Lion shipped with the unit, you are in luck. The computer is capable of using both the Lion Recovery Disk Assistant or the Online Lion Recovery process (hold COMMAND+R after you hear the chime. Both will download Lion and install it for you. All new machines have their unique identifiers registered with Apple, so barring a complete logic board swap, they will always have access to Lion without the need to pay for the OS. In fact, your copy of Lion operates entirely outside of the Mac App Store.

Note: Be wary of partitioning tools (like SuperDuper, etc.) as Lion has a Recovery HD (weighing in at 650 MB) installed alongside the OS. This is there to either help with the reinstallation or diagnose and repair your system. It does not house the entire operating system, but rather things like Terminal and Disk Utility. Currently, partitioning tools do not clone this partition and the one's that are including this feature, are still in the experimental stages. Be careful.

Personally, I would verify the drive has the latest firmware revision and then install it in your Mac. Use either the Lion USB stick you created via the Recovery Disk Assistant or the built in Online Recovery and install Lion. That's it.

Answer 2

You need to format and partition the SSD just as you would a hard disk. Use disk utility, give it one partition with GUID in prefs and install Lion.

I don't know what your current Lion situation is so I can't comment on how to install it but you do need to format an SSD just as you would a hard disk.