Swapping HDs with new MBP: What to do with OS X?

Question

I purchased a new MacBook Pro 2.3GHz i7 quad-core from the Apple Store Thursday morning with the 750GB 5400RPM hard drive. I now have time to set up the new machine but I am hung up on how best to deal with swapping hard drives. My current MBP has a 640GB 7200RPM hard drive with OS X 10.6.6 installed. I am a photographer so the faster drive makes a big difference with large photo catalogs. I had planned on swapping out the new 750GB 5400RPM drive for my current 640GB 7200RPM hard drive and then get back to work, however, I am concerned that the OS X installed on the 640GB 7200RPM hard drive will not be compatible with the new machine's processor. Should I do the swap and then boot up from the new laptop's OS X install disks and do a OS X only install? I have never done a OS X only install/update, will any other data be altered, any suggestions on how to proceed? Should I just swap, start up and then run Apple Software Update?
I would prefer avoiding an erase and install, cloning, migration, Adobe registration issues, etc and going the HD swap and OS X disk update route if it can work.
Thanks for your input,
Chad

Answer 1

I found this discussing looking to do the same thing-ish.
I just bought a new i7 quad MacBook Pro (delivered today). Less than 4 weeks ago, I had picked up an i5 MacBook Pro. Since I'm still in my return window, I decided the buy the new one, do the hard drive shuffle and return the less new one.
I have a 500gb 7200rpm drive AND a 120gb SSD in the drive bay. I really never considered just swapping the drives into the new machine, but I thought I'd search and see if anyone had any success.
I had a couple thoughts on how I'm going to do the shuffle:
1) Superduper clone the SSD back onto my 500gb. I the system as it is now started life on the 500gb. Superduper (registered) will do a backup only updating the changed files which shouldn't be too bad. I have my user directories (separate from the startup disk) on the 500gb so SD won't have to copy any of those files. Then I figured I could use the migration software to copy all my 'stuff' (minus user directory) back onto the newly reformatted SSD with 10.6 installed onto the new MBP.
2) I was noticing that migration assistant can work from Time Machine, so I'll probably do that since my SSD time machine backup doesn't contain my gigantic user directory. I'll still do a SuperDuper backup just to be safe.
I'm tempted to throw my hard drive into an external usb to see if it boots just for the heck of it.