I'm going to set up a new Mac. I have backups on Time Machine and Carbon Copy Cloner drives. Which would be better to use for migration? Not so much interested in speed a in reliability of getting all the data onto the new system.
Thanks very much.
I just migrated from a High Sierra iMac to a Sequoia mini a few days ago. I had your backup choices too. I went with using Time Machine and doing so as part of Setup. Do it during setup and it will create your old user folder. Do it using Migration Assistant later and it will create a new user.
Of course there was no point in my cloning a HS backup to a M4 mini and I just figured let Apple handle all the decision making.
In my case the "complexity" was that I was going from a larger internal drive to a smaller one, but that's beyond what you need as part of a reply. ;-)
I just migrated from a High Sierra iMac to a Sequoia mini a few days ago. I had your backup choices too. I went with using Time Machine and doing so as part of Setup. Do it during setup and it will create your old user folder. Do it using Migration Assistant later and it will create a new user.
Of course there was no point in my cloning a HS backup to a M4 mini and I just figured let Apple handle all the decision making.
In my case the "complexity" was that I was going from a larger internal drive to a smaller one, but that's beyond what you need as part of a reply. ;-)
Old Toad wrote:
If you want to use Migration Assistant during the initial setup of the new Mac you'll have to use the Time Machine backup. The CCC backup won't work with MA.
Is that something new..?
I'm asking, because less than a year ago I moved the wife to a new Mac using a CCC clone of her old Mac.
Steps for Migration:
If you're using Migration Assistant, I don't think it matters much which backup you use – as long as you bring that backup up-to-date on the old Mac before using it to do the migration.
Either type of "migration from backup" would be preferable to migrating over Wi-Fi. (Wi-Fi is the least reliable of the options Migration Assistant supports.)
Seems either way...
a Clone is a clone —maybe it separates the user data from the macOS....(?) The macOS will not go backwards, only the same or forward.
You do not say what old machine/Intel/M-series/ macOS...to your new machine? I tend to move everything on the initial boot up with TM.
The most trouble free way to move to a new machine, is using the Setup Assistant on the initial boot of a brand new machine— you have one shot here. Set up your MacBook Pro - Apple Support
The second best way is use the Migration Assistant.
How to move your content to a new Mac Transfer to a new Mac with Migration Assistant - Apple Support
If you want to use Migration Assistant during the initial setup of the new Mac you'll have to use the Time Machine backup. The CCC backup won't work with MA.
My family members use CCC for backups and Migration Assistant to restore that to a new Mac. Works great. Personally I manually restore CCC backups via the Finder when doing a clean install.
Whenever I get a chance, I nag them to update their MacBook backup to the external SSD I bought them as a Xmas present.
I guess both Time Machine and CCC backups would work just the same.
I have used both but the restoring using TM adds a few more steps especially when restoring mail but with CCC no step needed as all is ready to go out of the gate.
I use an HDD for Time Machine and SSDs for my CarbonCopyCloner clones.
Migrating from an SSD clone is way way faster than migrating from the TM HDD.
Thank you Leroy. It's M-series to M-series. In the past I've usually used CCC, but I guess it won't matter.
Really? It recognizes the CCC drive and lets you select it.
All my spinners are gone fortunately.
Tom Wolsky wrote:
All my spinners are gone fortunately.
👍 I have one HDD left in an OWC Mini Stack.
I stand corrected. Had a CCC backup but didn't try it. Opps.🤭
Thank you for following up Old Toad.
Thank you Matti.
Migrating from Time Machine or Carbon Copy Cloner
