Update Hard Drive to SSD

I would use your existing SSD as your boot drive, paticularly if your Mac uses a HD to start up or a Fusion drive. This can be easily done by using a cloning apps such as SuperDuper! or Carbon Copy Cloner and clone your internal drive to the external SSD. Then all you need to do is go into System Preferences - Startup Drive and assign the SSD as your startup drive and enjoy a much faster SSD.

For a backup I would get a OWC Mercury Elite Pro and use that as either your Time Machine backup drive or you can also use one of the cloning apps mentioned above to do a clone daily. Personally I am paranoid about backups, why becuase backups can fail too. I use both Time Machine on one EHD and on a totally seperate EHD I use SuperDuper! to clone my internal drive nightly while i am sleeping.

The brick and mortar Apple Stores will not do upgrades.

You need to find an Apple Authorized Service Provider that will and ask them how much it will cost.

see > https://support.apple.com/mac/repair/service

In addition, prices will vary based on where you are on the planet. Personally I would go with an external solution on any Mac made 2012 or later. Extremely easy to do, much less expensive and can be done by the end user.

What type and size is your current internal boot drive?

Welcome to the Apple Support Communities.

What year is your Mac?

Cheers,

Jack

What is the brand and model of the current external SSD?

I sure wouldn't use the internal drive as your TM backup. Using a SSD as a backup drive is foolish, it is speed that is being totally wasted.

Depends on how often and how fast you may want to restore and/or migrate files to a new Mac.

What is the exact brand and model exactly? The reason I ask is because some do not function well as bootable devices.