How migrate from drives w. no Thunderbolt to new TB drives?

Question

How migrate from drives w. no Thunderbolt to new TB drives?

Ok, I'm sure I'm missing something obvious!!

I'm going to be migrating from an old Mac Pro that has 2 internal drives, both 2TB in size (one boot drive, one media drive), to a MacBook Pro with a 512 SSD.

I'm wondering how I'll need hook up the Mac Pro to the MacBook Pro (and external drive) to transfer the files (since the Mac Pro doesn't have Thunderbolt, and the new MacBook Pro doesn't have ethernet).

I'm guessing I'll need to plug the Mac Pro ethernet into the MacBook Pro via ethernet to Thunderbolt adapter?

Then use migration assistant to setup the new SSD.

Tthen I am guessing my new external Thunderbolt drive (G-RAID) will just appear as another drive on my MacBook Pro (like the old Mac Pro drives will also?) and so I just drag the files from the Mac Pro drives onto the G-RAID drive?

Trying to figure this out before so I don't get stumped during

😀

Mac Pro, Mac OS X (10.6.8), Time Capsule

Posted on Apr 29, 2013 5:10 PM

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Answer 1

LowLuster

Level 6

12,105 points

Apr 29, 2013 5:34 PM in response to aquestionortwo

Not sure you can daisy chain a tb drive and then a tb to ethernet adapter. Are you getting a retina model as they have 2 tb ports.

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Answer 2

Apr 30, 2013 11:03 AM in response to LowLuster

I am getting a retina, so would have those 2 TBolt ports. But I guess what I am curious is, then how would I hook up the old Mac Pro to transfer the files held there internally (2+ TB) to a future external TBolt drive attached to the MBP?

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Answer 3

LowLuster

Level 6

12,105 points

Apr 30, 2013 11:57 AM in response to aquestionortwo

If you have 2tb+ of data no matter what connection type you use it is going to take quit a while to transfer that data.

You really only have one option and that is ethernet.

If the mac pro doesn't have gigabit ethernet it is going to take even longer.

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Answer 4

Network 23

Level 6

12,333 points

Apr 30, 2013 12:20 PM in response to LowLuster

I have the earliest Mac Pro and it has dual Gigabit Ethernet ports so it ought to work. Gigabit Ethernet is still faster than USB 2 and FireWire 400.

Since it's so easy to take drives out of a Mac Pro, the other option is to spend about $40-80 on a dock with USB 3 and stick 'em in there to do the transfer.

Voyager Drive Dock

USB 3 will be nice and fast on a new MacBook Pro, even if not as fast as Thunderbolt.

I like to have a dock anyway for backups, since backing up to bare drives is cheaper than buying fully encased externals.

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