How to upgrade Mac Pro guts without changing brains

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How to upgrade Mac Pro guts without changing brains

Hi there,

I currently use a Mac Pro 3,1 that is finally starting to be too slow for the professional audio work I do on it, so I just bought a used Mac Pro 5,1 that is ~60% faster in every way.

What I would like to ideally do is simply transfer over my hard drives and be done with the "migration" process! I want the same exact computer set up in the same exact way that I have it now, only for this computer to have faster processing.

My question is: What is the easiest way to "clone" my computer onto my new one? Could I simply just transfer all 4 of my current hard drives into the new one and it would work? I honestly don't even want to use the HDD that is coming with the newer Mac Pro.

Thanks!

OS X Yosemite (10.10.3)

Posted on Jul 30, 2015 3:32 PM

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Answer 1

eggsmack Author

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Jul 30, 2015 3:34 PM in response to eggsmack

...I should specify that when I say "transfer all 4 of my current hard drives into the new mac pro" I am referring to physically taking the drives from the old mac pro chassis and installing the drives into the 4 bays of the newer mac pro.

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Answer 2

Jul 30, 2015 3:43 PM in response to eggsmack

You can Almost do that. You will need to re-mount the drives on the sleds that came in the newer Mac Pro. The {2006,2007,2008} sleds do not work with the {2009,2010,2012} Mac Pro.

Then start up with the Option key held down and choose the Boot Drive. Don't forget to set the Boot drive later with System preferences >Startup Disk.

a few (very few) major system Preferences are in a system level preference file. Almost all are in your own Preferences files, and will work just fine.

For readers who get here by searching: This works as long as the system in the older Mac was built from a "purchased" version of Mac OS X that is late enough to be supported directly by the newer Mac.

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Answer 3

eggsmack Author

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Jul 30, 2015 4:06 PM in response to Grant Bennet-Alder

Wonderful, thank you!

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