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Migrate Assistance

RatHat

RatHat

macrumors member
Original poster
Jun 29, 2011
67
3
I am soon to receive a new 27" iMac. My old 2010 iMac (which will go to the wife), currently has all my files and folders in it, so I will need to transfer everything across.

As the new iMac does not have a Firewire 800 port, I think I will need to buy a Firewire 800 cable, along with a Firewire 800 / Thunderbolt adaptor so I can run the migration transfer overnight.

Question is though, can I use a standard ethernet cable to link the two machines and migrate all my files, or is there any other way that would be cheaper than buying cables that I can only envisage having to use once?
 
A

AppleFan360

macrumors 68020
Jan 26, 2008
2,212
719
RatHat said:
I am soon to receive a new 27" iMac. My old 2010 iMac (which will go to the wife), currently has all my files and folders in it, so I will need to transfer everything across.

As the new iMac does not have a Firewire 800 port, I think I will need to buy a Firewire 800 cable, along with a Firewire 800 / Thunderbolt adaptor so I can run the migration transfer overnight.

Question is though, can I use a standard ethernet cable to link the two machines and migrate all my files, or is there any other way that would be cheaper than buying cables that I can only envisage having to use once?
Click to expand...
Yes, you can use a standard ethernet cable.
 
T

trustever

macrumors 6502
Jan 14, 2013
290
0
@ Chris Blount: just quickly jump in this conversation, how fast is ethernet at transfering 1 GB of data? Does it make sense to use it over to USB 2.0?

Thanks and Regards
 
D

Dr FranknFurter

macrumors member
Mar 23, 2012
72
0
Cambridge UK
You can use ethernet cable or your WiFi network with Migration assistant. If you are only transferring 1GB of data then speed is irrelevant so any method is fine. Alternatively you could just use a USB Stick but then it would not transfer the account info automatically.

I would also recommend if using the Migration Assistant to do it immediately when you first switch the new machine on as it will copy all the user accounts over for you. If you don't do this and manually make new user accounts then the migration does not work so well as it gets confused with the multiple accounts.
 
RatHat

RatHat

macrumors member
Original poster
Jun 29, 2011
67
3
I have about 650GB of data to transfer across, so USB and WiFi are not the best options.

I would be very interested to find out what sort of transfer rate an Ethernet cable would give.

Thanks for the heads up on doing this before anything else.
 
A

AppleFan360

macrumors 68020
Jan 26, 2008
2,212
719
RatHat said:
I have about 650GB of data to transfer across, so USB and WiFi are not the best options.

I would be very interested to find out what sort of transfer rate an Ethernet cable would give.

Thanks for the heads up on doing this before anything else.
Click to expand...
Ethernet is not extremely fast either but what's the hurry? Start the migration and let it run. It should take about 2-3 hours then you're done!
 
RatHat

RatHat

macrumors member
Original poster
Jun 29, 2011
67
3
Chris Blount said:
Ethernet is not extremely fast either but what's the hurry? Start the migration and let it run. It should take about 2-3 hours then you're done!
Click to expand...

Thanks Chris,

That sounds like the way to go, start it up when I am about to go to bed, and let it go overnight.
 
A

AppleFan360

macrumors 68020
Jan 26, 2008
2,212
719
RatHat said:
Thanks Chris,

That sounds like the way to go, start it up when I am about to go to bed, and let it go overnight.
Click to expand...
Yep, should be done by the time you wake up. The last time I transferred about 450GB of data and it took about 2 hours.
 
T

trustever

macrumors 6502
Jan 14, 2013
290
0
Chris Blount said:
Yep, should be done by the time you wake up. The last time I transferred about 450GB of data and it took about 2 hours.
Click to expand...

Did you transfer the 450GB using ethernet or anything else?

I wish I had to transfer 1GB only, I would have not asked at all.. I have some sort of 250GB of datas to move but if you did in 2 hours I can expect them to hurry up in 1 hour... Very good!
 
RatHat

RatHat

macrumors member
Original poster
Jun 29, 2011
67
3
trustever said:
Did you transfer the 450GB using ethernet or anything else?

I wish I had to transfer 1GB only, I would have not asked at all.. I have some sort of 250GB of datas to move but if you did in 2 hours I can expect them to hurry up in 1 hour... Very good!
Click to expand...

Ended up copying everything to a 1TB external hard drive and transferring that way. When I got the machine, I had several days to do online updates, so installed most of the applications first then added all my own files with the external drive.
 
T

trustever

macrumors 6502
Jan 14, 2013
290
0
In the end I have mostly done the same, just moved everything to my external HD and then left that feed the new machine... I can't remember how long did it take but I was not worried about as i could access my data from the external HD anytime...
 
D

danNYtrack

macrumors newbie
Mar 1, 2013
18
0
Just last week I migrated from my 2011 iMac to the new iMac. I connected the two with ethernet as I did not want to utilize my Time Capsule's backup and wait 20+ hours to use my new iMac. Anyway, for about 300GB (I did some serious deleting the night before the new iMac arrived and dumped well over 150GB) it took just over 1.5 hours. Good Luck!!
 

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