Hi,
i'm about to turn on my brand new Mac.
I have 2 iCloud accounts:
1. my MAIN account: myname@icloud.com
2. the account I use ONLY for purchases and updates on the MAS: blabla@me.com
Which account should I enter first?
After that I'll use "data migration" when proposed by Mac OS X.
I would setup the MAIN account first, and enter that account in the Mail setup also...set mail to gather all mail accounts so you don't have to click through multiple mail accounts. And setup your Apple ID accordingly if that is what you use with the iCloud account.
Then setup the second account, but, unless you receive mail and notifications from there, don't set that up in Mail. If you do receive notifications and invoices, then I would set it up in Mail also. That is really up to you and how much traffic you want to see.
Thanks Ralph.
Just to make sure we understand each other: the MAIN account myname@icloud.com is the one I use with iCloud and to sync with iDevices, while the blabla@me.com is the one i use on the MAS and iTune Store only for purchases (i receive all the MAS and Apple invoices in blabla@me.com).
blabla@me.com is therefore country-dependent while I'd like myname@icloud.com to remain fully independent, when I move from country A to country B for several years or forever, I want to keep using myname@icloud.com while I may need to create a new MAS account after moving to country B.
In other words, I don't wish to merge both accounts. Please let me know whether the procedure you indicated is ok for that purpose. Thanks.
You can do that, and to be sure things are setup right, read through http://support.apple.com/kb/TS4020 as it tells you how to setup and switch between multiple iCloud accounts.
You and Ralph seem to be understanding each other.
You can't merge the accounts, so that isn't a problem. Reference your first paragraph, if you receive invoices at blabla......, you'll need to add that to your email program.
Thanks very much to all of you. It's now completed.
I entered my Main account as suggested and then i migrated from a SuperDuper clone. I therefore got all my data and settings back and my blabla@me.com automatically set up in Mail as secondary account, as it should be.
Just a question which should be posted maybe somewhere else but it's related to the present thread too.
My SuperDuper clone was from a SSD 256 MBA (late 2011). The new Mac is a late 2012 SSD 256 MacMini.
Strangely enough my actual MacMini drive has less free space than the original MBA and so even after deleting all the files marked "from old computer".
I double checked everywhere but i can't find any explanation for that.
Maybe the MacMini System drive needs more space than the MBA one, i don't know.
if you have any explanation, please let me know.
Thanks.
UPDATE
@Ralph: very sorry, i wanted to click your first reply as "this solved my question" but i clicked mine instead, very sorry indeed.
Sounds like you have the system well under control...that is the most important thing and what we are all here for, to help each other.
The second issue...there may be differences due to operating system software on the two machines along with how the drive space has been allocated. SSDs don't work exactly the same way as hard drives, space that has been used is not released back for reuse right away as in a hard drive that has had material deleted. Historically, though not an issue today, SSDs did not as cleanly remove content and had a tendency to end up with unusable sectors when they were rewritten. So manufacturers and operating system designers started to continuously write to fresh space instead of to deleted space. Creates some confusion as to true free space until one starts going back over used sectors. Not sure exactly what you are seeing when you talk about content sizes but that could be part of the differences.
Hi Ralph,
What you mention about SSDs is very interesting indeed.
In order to clarify things, here's exactly what I can see on my 256 SSD MacMini (brand new, delivered by Apple yesterday):
1. On clicking Macintosh HD "Get Info":
2. Both iStatMenu and CleanMyDrive give the same results different from "Get Info"
Question is, who is telling the truth?
Now may I ask you a couple of questions so that I try to solve the problem?
Thanks.
Sorry this took a while but it has been a busy day and I didn't have much time for my own interests.
Would I believe Mac OS X or another utility? I hae never used either of those utilities so am not in a position to honestly rate them...but that said, disk utilites sometimes use different algorithms for measuring the storage capacity, measure in terms of sectors, or blocks and can end up with differences in their reporting. If they measure in blocks, and assume a block is used entirely even if only a few sectors are, then they will report a higher quantitiy used and lower available than a utility that bases it measurements on sectors. So the thing to do is look at Mac OS X and the third-party utilities and see how they measure and report usage.
It really doesn't matter right or wrong, the operating system controls the writing to the storage so it will use the sectors available whether the utiltity says they are or not. Does that make sense? I will have to take a look at them later tonight and see how they work but that is my guess right now.
Your other questions: a simple reboot and use of Disk Utility will disclose the Recovery Hard Drive - DU will never see that. The only way to see it is to reboot and hold the Option key while booting. That will result in a grey screen with the boot volumes shown. You should see Macintosh HD and Recovery HD. You can then click on one of those and an arrow will appear under it and then click the arrow to boot to that partition.
I would not do a clean install at this time...in the new Mac OS X terminology that is an erase and reinstall...you have to be booted to the Recovery HD, have a solid internet connection, then open DU and choose the Macintosh HD and erase it, when done quit DU and then choose Reinstall Mac OS X...that will then download the bare bones Recovery HD again, restart and then proceed to download the Mac OS X installer, build and install and reboot again. That installer download is big, 4.5 GB so even over a high speed line will take at least half an hour.
I would not do that right now and work with the system for a while.
Hi Ralph,
Thanks for your reply. No problem with the "late" reply, we all have our own commitments (and also live in different parts on the globe 😉).
First part of your answer: yes indeed, it does make sense. Thanks for offering to do the research about the different types of algorithms. However, I must say that on the iMac, both DU and iStatMenu (and CleanMyDrive) report exactly the same available/used SSD size.
So, I'm anxious to know the real size available i have on my MacMini SSD. I must say though the difference in size reported on the MacMini **might** be due to the fact that when I first migrated from the MBA SuperDuper Clone, the process failed, I got a black screen and had to turn off the Mini, turn it on again after waiting for awhile and launch the whole setup/migration process a second time (with success).
As for the second part:
1. Recovery partition problem: I did reboot pressing Option key but couldn't see the Recovery HD.
This might be due to the fact I'm using the iMac screen (the only one I have) as the default monitor for the MacMini. Right after rebooting the MacMini, I had to press cmd-F2 on the iMac's keyboard in order to have access to the MacMini monitor. So although, right after, I immediatly pressed the Option key on the MacMini's keyboard, the above mentioned manipulation (cmd-F2 on the iMac's keyboard) prevented the MacMini to be aware of the fact that I was actually trying boot on the Recovery partition...
Is there a workaround? (I tried several times, should I try again?).
2. I assume the very last paragraph of your reply refers only to a Clean Install (which I understand you don't recommend and which is in fact very good news for me). What you explain has nothing to do with a simple rebooting (on the unreachable Recovery partition) and reinstalling Mac OS X WITHOUT erasing my hard drive, if not please correct me.
Thanks again for your detailed explanations 🙂
It doesn't make sense for a Mini, but since you migrated from a MBA, it might have brought over the "local snapshots." On a portable, Time Machine makes local backups on the drive and will give up the space if needed. The Finder will not report that space as used, while other utilities will.
But, I don't know why Migration Assistant would bring them over.
Hi Barney,
Thanks.
Is there a way I could find and possibly delete thos "local snapshots" if present on the MacMini?
Take a look at this article by Pondini. You should skip down to the bottom and see if they actually exist. http://pondini.org/TM/30.html
As I stated, I'm not sure why they would have been brought over, but if they were, you should see them following the information on his site.
Hi Barney,
Thanks for the very interesting Pondini link.
Answer is no, local snapshots from the MBA are not there. The only ones I could see are those related to the freshly set up MacMini since I haven't affected a Time Machine HD to this computer yet.
As for their size, it seems it can't be reckoned by "Get Info" probably because of the multiple folders nesting.
Anyway, Pondini seems to say those local backups are deleted by the system when Macintosh HD size reaches 80% of the total available space. 🙂
That being said, i still don't know why I get 2 differents available sizes as mentioned previously on this thread. Maybe due to the different algorithms mentioned by Ralph.
Setting up my new Mac with 2 iCloud accounts?
