Sidebar Sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

Anyone successfully migrated to M2 Mac Mini using Migration Assistant?

T

twynne

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Apr 21, 2006
805
45
London, UK
Just received a new M2 Pro Mini yesterday, and have failed every attempt to migrate my user data from an M1 Pro MBP. I've tried every which way using Migration Assistant, Recovery, even a SuperDuper clone. MA hangs every time at 'updating system settings', I believe the last step.

Would like to rule out some issue with MA on this batch of machines.
 
Different models, but I was unable to get Migration Assistant to move from a 2012 Mini running Catalina to an M2 Air with Ventura. Ended up doing it manually.

I thought it might be that jumping a decade in hardware tech, and four OS upgrades, in one go was too much. But your experience suggests maybe not.
 
It appears that Apple's assuming that users that are on 2019 macOS Catalina or earlier are not numerous enough to test for bugs.

If you have time report the problem to https://www.apple.com/feedback/macos.html

BTW I admire you guys for holding out replacing your Intel Macs to after the final macOS Security Update.

How's the performance difference from a 2012 Mac to a 2022 Mac.
 
Thanks all. Fwiw, I'm only migrating from a 2021 M1 Pro MacBook to the Mac Mini M2 Pro, so not even that much of a jump! Both are running the same OS and release.
 
Miat said:
😻😻😻

I highly recommend everybody try jumping a decade of tech in one go, at least once in your life.
Click to expand...
lol

Will be doing that with my 119.5 month old 2012 iMac 27" 22nm as soon as its direct replacement is released.

Just wish it was a 3nm M2 Pro rather than a 5nm node. So you know... magnify the switch so much further.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Miat
I just successfully upgraded from 2016 MBP to an M2 MBP. My first attempt with Migration Assistant failed. I don't know why because I didn't watch it. It rebooted itself somewhere along the way and I assumed that it worked. But when I finished setup on the new MBP, my user files weren't there so I started again. The first configuration was as follows: old computer booted in Target mode connected to my new computer via Thunderbolt 4 cable.

My second try, I booted my old computer and used Migration Assistant to push the data and my new computer using Migration Assistant to pull the data. Again, connected with a T4 cable. It ran for about an hour and I didn't lose any data. All my files had been transferred onto my new machine.
 
I upgraded from a 2012 quad i7 to a Mac Studio base about a month ago. Migration Assistant kept failing.
Coincidentally, the 2023 minis came out and I was still within my return period, so I returned the Studio and went with the mini Pro with 4tb. Migration Assistant failed once and then completed.
The leap from the 2012 to 2023 was great, as I sort of expected. I probably could have gone with the non-pro mini, but I really wanted an internal 4tb drive since my wife has been using my machine recently, too. (the non-pro only goes up to 2tb and I didn't want to dangle an external drive right from day 1).
So it's a great machine for me and it's quiet. I did not have any issues with the studio, other than I really preferred the physical size of the mini.
 
  • Like
Reactions: IngoX and Bob_DM
Is it possible to migrate all the personal data to a mini M2, from an iPod Touch?
 
Are you all using a direct connection to your old machine or using a Time Machine backup?
 
I was trying to migrate from a directly connected external boot clone.
 
Still not sure the root cause, but it appears to have either been an issue with migrating from an Apple silicon machine to another, or something specific to the data being migrated. I ended up migrating my account from a different Mac and it finally worked. Frustrating that MA didn’t gracefully handle whatever the issue was.
 
OP:

Re the "failed" migration...
HOW were you "migrating"?

By USBc?
By wifi?
By time machine backup?
By another backup (such as CarbonCopyCloner or SuperDuper)?

That can make a difference.
 
Fishrrman said:
OP:

Re the "failed" migration...
HOW were you "migrating"?

By USBc?
By wifi?
By time machine backup?
By another backup (such as CarbonCopyCloner or SuperDuper)?

That can make a difference.
Click to expand...
I was really more interested in rather anyone else had been successful with it, as it was looking very much like Setup Assistant and or Migration Assistant had some sort of issue.

But to answer the question, I had tried all of the above:

- Thunderbolt (Apple cable)
- Ethernet
- TM backup (multiple attempts with different drives)
- Clone using SuperDuper
- Several of the above using different parameters, migrating only subsets instead of the entire machine

Nearly all failed at roughly the same point, making me suspect Apple's 'migration' as the issue.

In the end I migrated my user account from a different Mac, and then adjusted to make it match the original source to the best I could. Would love to understand why it failed, but no way to know that I'm aware of.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Fishrrman
I successfully migrated from a 2017 iMac to an M2 Mini.
MA took about 15 minutes to complete, backup was made using CarbonCopyCloner to an external SSD.
 
  • Like
Reactions: FCX
twynne said:
Nearly all failed at roughly the same point…
Click to expand...
My belief is that most of the time when people think migration or software install or upgrade has failed, those people don’t realize how long the process might take. They lose patience and end up interrupting the migration/installation/upgrade.

That isn’t always the case, but it is a common thing, because those processes are difficult to provide accurate profess information for.
 
chabig said:
My belief is that most of the time when people think migration or software install or upgrade has failed, those people don’t realize how long the process might take. They lose patience and end up interrupting the migration/installation/upgrade.

That isn’t always the case, but it is a common thing, because those processes are difficult to provide accurate profess information for.
Click to expand...
In this case it waited for hours with no progress, no increase in file count, and the time to completion just increasing. It was quite obviously hung.

Migrating the same account from a different machine completed in little over an hour. Clearly something was wrong with the previous account/data.
 
I had mighty problems running migration assistant between my 2018 MBP and my M1 Pro. I also tried all sorts of ways and it was super slow and eventually hung every time.

What I came to realize was that the stupid USB cable Apple includes in the box is not a data cable, but a charging only cable that only does USB 2.0 speeds!

I then used a proper TB cable and the migration carried out as expected.
 
smirking said:
I had mighty problems running migration assistant between my 2018 MBP and my M1 Pro. I also tried all sorts of ways and it was super slow and eventually hung every time.

What I came to realize was that the stupid USB cable Apple includes in the box is not a data cable, but a charging only cable that only does USB 2.0 speeds!

I then used a proper TB cable and the migration carried out as expected.
Click to expand...
Yes, USB-C cables are terrible for that as they all essentially look the same. In my case I definitely used an Apple TB4 cable. It was *fast*, but still hung at same place. Used the same to transfer from M2 MBA in the end and it was blazing.
 
  • Like
Reactions: smirking
Could there be a problem migrating between former Intel Macs to Apple Silicon Macs because the change in software architecture introduces an additional fault line?

I recently exchanged my 2019 Intel iMac for a new M2 Mini and used the chance for a “clean” start and migrated my user data manually and/or using iCloud to avoid transferring the old “intel bit’s n bop’s“ that accumulated in the last 10 years of migrating between machines. Certainly not an option for everyone, I know.
 
  • Like
Reactions: DavidInSydney
FFabian said:
Could there be a problem migrating between former Intel Macs to Apple Silicon Macs because the change in software architecture introduces an additional fault line?
Click to expand...
This was all from Apple Silicon to Apple Silicon. I no longer have any Intel kit.
 
Just speculating: Could be an issue with the hard drive then. Check with CMD - D during startup then run Apple Diagnostics on the drive. Other thing I would try is excluding the Application folder.
 
Once again, my advice:
The BEST way to "migrate" from old to new is by using a CLONED BACKUP on an external drive.
Even better than using a tm backup.

Just my "advice".
One can take it or leave it.
(it's worth what you paid for it)
 
  • Like
Reactions: slothinker
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back