Best way to migrate data after a Snow Leopard clean install?

[Stardotboy]

I know there are numerous posts already about whether to 'clean install' or upgrade to Snow Leopard, but I can't seem to find an answer to my question anywhere.

I have two computers that I've already upgraded to Snow Leopard - an iMac that's about a year old (with data on it that has been migrated between macs since Tiger) and a brand new MBP which is unblighted by any migrated data. The MBP seems much faster for the upgrade, but the iMac seems a little slower.

My instinct here is to erase my iMac hard drive and install Snow Leopard from scratch, which would presumably solve the sluggish performance issues.

My question is this: I have all my iMac data backed up on Time Machine. Is performing a clean install and then restoring my mac from Time Machine going to give me exactly the same problems as upgrading did? Or would it be better to selectively move data back to my iMac after a clean install?

If I need to do this the hard way (as I suspect) and selectively bring back my data to leave the junk behind, is there anything I can do before running a clean install to make this more painless?

Any help would be much appreciated.

 

[Tex-Twil]

Hello,

Is performing a clean install and then restoring my mac from Time Machine going to give me exactly the same problems as upgrading did? Or would it be better to selectively move data back to my iMac after a clean install?

The cleanest OS you can get is to make a clean install then copy manually the data from the Time Machine back to your MBP.

Though, when you restore from the TM (i.e. not manually) you can choose which data the installation should restore: Documents, Application ... So I think it can also result in a very clean system as well.

If I need to do this the hard way (as I suspect) and selectively bring back my data to leave the junk behind, is there anything I can do before running a clean install to make this more painless?

Not really but I would not say it is painful. I did a clean install and it went very smoothly.

Good luck

 

[GoCubsGo]

I installed the "upgrade" on my best machine, a 2008 MP. I found that it was a combo of not feeling like the OS felt new and a perceived notion that it was slow. I'm betting it wasn't all that slow really but my mind was set after working through the weekend with the upgrade. I did a clean install and selectively (still am) pulled data back over. It has been a learning experience and not something I regret nor found painful.

I would say tht you should make sure you have a general idea of what you'd like to keep and what you want to toss. That's what I've been doing. I'd say the system feels cleaner but again I'm also thinking it is all in my head.

 

[darkpaw]

I made a Time Machine backup of my entire Early 2008 Mac Pro, the did an upgrade install. A couple of things started crashing, so I formatted and performed a clean install and let Time Machine restore everything. No problems, no crashes and everything is where I expect it to be.

 

[MACWhite]

ok here is my question:

I have all my data (videos, music, etc) on an external HD. After i perform a clean install of SL, do i need to migrate data, or can i can drag and drop my music and movies manually?