Migration from old Mac to New

Migrating data from your old Mac Book to your new Mac Book using a wired connection should not affect the partition or your Windows installation on the new Mac Book. The migration process typically transfers your personal files, applications, and settings from one Mac to another without interfering with the operating system or installed programs.

Parallels, being a virtualization software, creates a separate virtual machine to run Windows 11 on your Mac Book Pro. The migration process focuses on transferring data between the macOS environments and doesn't directly interact with the Windows installation within Parallels.

However, it's always a good idea to back up your important data before performing any migration or transfer process, just to be on the safe side. This way, you can restore your data in case anything unexpected happens during the migration process.

To ensure a smooth migration, you can follow the official Apple guidelines for transferring data from one Mac to another using Migration Assistant. This utility simplifies the process and allows you to choose which files and settings you want to transfer. Just make sure to select the appropriate options and carefully review the settings before proceeding with the migration.

If you have any specific concerns about the migration process or want more detailed instructions, feel free to ask!

Migration Assistant does a file-by-file transfer. it does not bulk-erase anything. This means it takes a long time to complete, even over a wired connection, and in most cases, a new Account will be created for your old User from your old computer.

This Apple article talks about using Wi-Fi, which is even slower, but will work in many, cases.

Move content to a new Mac - Apple support

Transfer to a new Mac with Migration Assistant - Apple Support

Migration Assistant 'takes over' both computers, and takes a surprisingly long elapsed time. First it may need to compute a Spotlight index of the data. Once data transfer begins, it takes a bit longer than a FULL backup, likely all afternoon to overnight. You may want to set this up late in the day and let it run overnight, and be ready for it not to be done by morning.

"the best way" is to use your Time machine backup from the old Mac as the source for Migration Assistant running on the new Mac. USB-2 is as fast as almost every Rotating Magnetic drive, and will not produce a noticeable slowdown doing this transfer.

The way that usually works (but occasionally take several tries) but will seem really slow is using Wi-Fi through your Router.

If you could use Ethernet through your Router to BOTH Macs, that would be much faster. OR, if your old Mac is running 10.12 Sierra or later it can establish an Ad-hoc private Wi-fi connection to the new Mac when placed near the new Mac and both running Migration Assistant.

If your old Mac has no Thunderbolt-3 ports, Thunderbolt Bridge (a direct connection between the two Macs with a ThunderBolt cable) is off the table.

A USB cord sounds like a great idea, but does not work because USB is a local peripheral interface, and a Network interface is required, unless you can make your old Mac ‘look like a drive' to the new Mac.

Target Disk Mode can allow your old Mac to become a Hard drive, and it can be cable-connected to the new Mac. It requires ThunderBolt cable connection, so for a Thunderbolt-2 old Mac, you would need to obtain a Thunderbolt-3 <-> ThunderBolt-2 adapter (US$50) and a Thunderbolt-2 cable.

Transfer files between two Mac computers using target disk mode - Apple Support