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upgrading HDD: best migration option

Truffy

Truffy

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
May 9, 2005
978
7
somewhere outside your window...
I'm upgrading the HDD and OS in a 2009 Mac Mini. The old 320GB HDD has 5% unused space an is running 10.8, the new 1TB drive will have 10.9.

I want to migrate all data, apps, and settings from the old HDD to the new one. I will not be migrating from one Mac to another, but to itself with a new drive.

According to the Apple support site, I can migrate from a TM backup or from external disk. But which is the better option for a complete install of the old system (minus OS!)? Should I run migration assistant from a TM backup or stick the old HDD into a USB2 enclosure (which I would have to buy, hence I haven't tested)?
 
satcomer

satcomer

Suspended
Feb 19, 2008
9,115
1,973
The Finger Lakes Region
I used a Migration Assistant with relative success when upgrading my internal hard drive. Warning though don't migrate the Network settings and that will resolve some network stack errors.
 
C

csvke

macrumors newbie
Jan 31, 2014
13
0
+1 on carbon copy cloner
I have never had any problem and cloning was faster than migration assistant.
 
Fishrrman

Fishrrman

macrumors Penryn
Feb 20, 2009
28,346
12,461
My advice: do the "migration" BEFORE you change out the drives.

Do you already have an external enclosure in which to mount the new drive?

If you don't have one, I'd suggest a USB3/SATA docking station. To see what these are, go to amazon and enter "usb3 sata dock" into the search box -- you'll get many hits. Even if the Mini is the 2009 model, it pays to get USB3 anyway, with an eye on the future.

Then, put the new drive into the dock or enclosure, and initialize it using Disk Utility.

At this point, you want to install a copy of 10.9 onto the newly-initialized drive. This process should create the recovery partition as well.

At the end of the installation process, the installer should ask if you wish to import accounts, data, settings, etc., from another computer or drive. This is the time to select your current internal drive as the "source".

There's another way to do it:
- Install a clean OS, as above.
- Then, reboot from the fresh OS and create a "temporary" account (just serves to get things up-and-running)
- Then, use Software Update to bring all of the system software "up to date".
- Then, use Migration Assistant to import your old account, settings, apps and data from the old drive.
- You can either delete the "temp account", or keep it around. Sometimes it's useful to have the temp account, if you're having troubles with your regular account...

You should be able to do all of the above before you open the Mini to do the swap...
 
Weaselboy

Weaselboy

Moderator
Staff member
Jan 23, 2005
34,137
15,601
California
Truffy said:
According to the Apple support site, I can migrate from a TM backup or from external disk. But which is the better option for a complete install of the old system (minus OS!)? Should I run migration assistant from a TM backup or stick the old HDD into a USB2 enclosure (which I would have to buy, hence I haven't tested)?
Click to expand...

I'm not sure what you mean by the bolded part? You can either install the OS first then migrate the data, or you can just copy the existing system from one of your external drives to the new drive. If you are planning to use Migration Assistant, there really is no good reason to install the OS first, then after use Migration Assistant as you will get the same end result as if you just restored from the external.

My suggestion is to make sure your Time Machine backup is current, then install the new drive and option key boot from the TM disk. This will take you to a recovery screen where you can use Disk Util to erase the new drive to Mac OS Extended then click restore and your system will be right back like it was.
 
Truffy

Truffy

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
May 9, 2005
978
7
somewhere outside your window...
Fishrrman said:
My advice: do the "migration" BEFORE you change out the drives.

Do you already have an external enclosure in which to mount the new drive?

If you don't have one, I'd suggest a USB3/SATA docking station. To see what these are, go to amazon and enter "usb3 sata dock" into the search box -- you'll get many hits. Even if the Mini is the 2009 model, it pays to get USB3 anyway, with an eye on the future.

Then, put the new drive into the dock or enclosure, and initialize it using Disk Utility.

At this point, you want to install a copy of 10.9 onto the newly-initialized drive. This process should create the recovery partition as well.

At the end of the installation process, the installer should ask if you wish to import accounts, data, settings, etc., from another computer or drive. This is the time to select your current internal drive as the "source".
Click to expand...
My thanks to all, and especially Fishrrman. I did as you said. Put the new HDD in an external enclosure and installed Mavericks onto that. Then migrated the user account before opening up the Mini and swapping HDDs. Worked like a charm! :D
 
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