Does Migration Assistant perform an "exact" copy?

[Maroonblazer]

Hi all,
I'm considering the purchase of one of the new MacBook Pros. My current MBP has a lot of files/apps (500G internal HD) that I'd rather not reinstall. However, I've noticed the machine's performance has degraded over time and seems sluggish.

I'm wondering if, by using Migration Assistant to transfer the files from my old MBP to the new one, will I be transferring the sluggishness too (assuming it's caused by fragmented files)?

I've read the discussions about how fragmentation isn't a problem on Macs so am not interested in starting that one again. Let's assume, for the purpose of this discussion, that the drive really is fragmented.

Does Migration Assistant copy the data over block-for-block? In other words if a file is fragmented on the old MBP will it still be fragmented on the new MBP?

Thanks in advance!
mb

 

[old-wiz]

Files are copied; whether or not a file is fragmented means nothing to the copy process. Files are simply read from one machine and then written to another machine. The process of writing files does not "copy" fragmentation; it merely writes the files out. If the HDD has space there will be no fragmentation.