Installing SSD and keeping old HDD in the MacBook pro

Greetings guys,
I would need a hint or two. I have late 2012 MacBook pro 13', and I want to install Samsung SSD into it to improve it's performance. Now, I am musician, and I am using software instruments a lot, and I have tons of those installed on my HDD. I know how to replace HDD with SDD, but I want to :
1. Keep old HDD by geting rid of the DVD drive for storing the data
2. Transfer the whole system to the SSD with the operating system (I'm runing 1.8.5 Mountain Lion), and all the installations with it.
Should I just back up my system, replace the HDD with SSD, put HDD into DVD drive slot and just use Time machine from the external HDD on fresh SSD and that's it? Or is there more to it, please advise! Thanks!

Nexus6generation wrote:
Should I just back up my system, replace the HDD with SSD, put HDD into DVD drive slot and just use Time machine from the external HDD on fresh SSD and that's it?
That's fine.
However, what you can do is to clone the HDD onto the SSD without using a Time Machine backup, so you do not need an external drive. You have to do this after installing the SSD inside and putting the HDD in the DVD drive.
After putting the HDD in the DVD drive, turn on your Mac and it will start up in the HDD. Then, open Disk Utility and use it to format the SSD with a GUID partition table and "Mac OS Extended (Journaled)" as "Format" > http://pondini.org/OSX/DU1.html
After that, Disk Utility provides you a Restore option to clone a drive onto a different one, so put your HDD as "Source" and the SSD as "Destination" > http://pondini.org/OSX/DU7.html
Choose the option you want. The option you mentioned and the one I described are valid

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