Does Migration Assistant work well?

[Jackbequickly]

I am replacing my 6 month old M3 iMac with a new 16" MacBook M3Pro 36GB 1Tb today.

How well does Migration Assistant work? Anything to watch out for?

Plan on doing it at the very beginning before I even set up my new MBPro 16

Tips please!

 

[Fishrrman]

Do you have a backup drive?

If you do, RUN A "LAST BACKUP" just BEFORE you take the new Mac out of the box.

Have your backup "ready and waiting" when you unbox the new MBP.

I recommend that you plug it in BEFORE you open the lid for the very first time (because it will boot automatically and ask you to begin setup).

Start clicking through.
When setup assistant asks if you wish to migrate from another drive, YES you do.

So... "point the way" to the backup and give SA time to "digest" things.
It may take a little while.

Setup assistant will present you with a list of stuff to migrate.
I suggest you migrate it all (just accept the defaults), and let SA go to work.

Again, it will take a little time.
When done, you should see your old login screen, just as before.

Good luck.

 

[Jackbequickly]

Thanks!

Migration Assistant worked without a flaw! Apple has their crap together!!! It took a who but there was a lo on the iMac's drive. Only thing I had to do was the 3 digit codes on the credit cards!

Thanks Apple the MBPro with M3Pro chip and 36GB RAM rocks!

 

[Ben J.]

Does Migration Assistant work well?​

The answer, IMO, is yes.
10+ years ago on OSX, there were problems and instabilities, so we often set it to not migrate apps and settings, but these problems might be due to developers not doing it right, as much as MA not working well.

I have lots of macs, and I quite often install different versions of macOS and move user accounts between them. I have absolutely no problems trusting MA to do its thing without causing problems.

One thing you might experience is, on first run after a migration, you might get alerts telling you to allow some apps or extensions to have disk access or similar, but that's because it's running on a new system, and it's just part of the macOS security thing.

 

[MacGizmo]

I never, EVER trust any form of automated setup or backup. But I gotta admit, I've used Migration Assistant numerous times over the years on new Mac setups (fully expecting it to completely mess things up) and it has worked 100% flawlessly EVERY TIME!

 

[Ben J.]

The last issue I had (and easily fixed) a few years ago was with Avid Pro Tools, which is known to be sensible to almost any types of change, after migration, saying "the application is damaged and must be reinstalled" on first launch. The fix was simply to right-click (option-click) protools and select 'open' in the context menu. Any later launches after that were no problem.

 

[gilby101]

Anything to watch out for?

Software licenses (non Mac App Store) and registering software can cause issues. For example: Software license that is tied to the old Mac, you will have to take manual steps to fix this - may be sufficient to deregister on the old Mac and reregister on the new. I try and note this sort of thing in my software license database when I purchase software.

 

[Jackbequickly]

I thank Apple for making it as easy as switching iphones. Awesome software!

 

[VitoBotta]

I have used Setup/Migration Assistant countless times over the years and it has always worked great for me without ever an issue.

 

[jb102]

I'm 12 hrs into a data migration using a Lightning cable and MA between my 2018 MBP and a new Mac Studio.

It's a one-terabyte disc that's about half full. Should it take this long to migrate to a one-terabyte disc?

 

[Fishrrman]

"I'm 12 hrs into a data migration using a Lightning cable and MA between my 2018 MBP and a new Mac Studio.
It's a one-terabyte disc that's about half full. Should it take this long to migrate to a one-terabyte disc?"

How fast is "lightning"?
(I've never owned any device that uses it).
Is it roughly the speed of firewire 800?
In today's terms, that's pretty slow.
(hmm... I looked it up, and it's only USB2 speed -- 480MBps)

The better way to do it (or more correcty, to have done it):
Use an EXTERNAL USB3 backup drive.
Hmmm.... I think the 2018 MBP supports USB3.1 gen2, so a drive like the Crucial X9 would run quite fast.

It can be time machine, but the migration will go faster if you use a CLONED backup created with either CarbonCopyCloner or SuperDuper.

If you've never used either, SuperDuper is easiest to use for this.
No instructions needed, just follow the onscreen prompts.
And... it's FREE to use forever to create a "full clone".

 

[jb102]

"I'm 12 hrs into a data migration using a Lightning cable and MA between my 2018 MBP and a new Mac Studio.
It's a one-terabyte disc that's about half full. Should it take this long to migrate to a one-terabyte disc?"

How fast is "lightning"?
(I've never owned any device that uses it).
Is it roughly the speed of firewire 800?
In today's terms, that's pretty slow.
(hmm... I looked it up, and it's only USB2 speed -- 480MBps)

The better way to do it (or more correcty, to have done it):
Use an EXTERNAL USB3 backup drive.
Hmmm.... I think the 2018 MBP supports USB3.1 gen2, so a drive like the Crucial X9 would run quite fast.

It can be time machine, but the migration will go faster if you use a CLONED backup created with either CarbonCopyCloner or SuperDuper.

If you've never used either, SuperDuper is easiest to use for this.
No instructions needed, just follow the onscreen prompts.
And... it's FREE to use forever to create a "full clone".

Thanks, Fishrrman,
After 2-3 hrs onto 2nd/ 3rd level mac software support + 6 failed attempts* using MA, they've recommended what you have. They suggest Time Machine (of course they would).
Now, to borrow an external hard disk and do that over the weekend.

Watch this space for an update.

*it can't get past the reviewing files and apps stage - whether left for 15 minutes or overnight, there's something it doesn't like but won't say what - it faulters by continually "Calculating" the System & Networking.
It's not the lightning cable, as in one call we switched to peer-to-peer wireless - I reinstalled the OS on the Studio several times, so not that + removed all and any kind of virus scanning SW, etc. from my MB 15".

Watch this space...

 

[Fishrrman]

"They suggest Time Machine (of course they would).
Now, to borrow an external hard disk and do that over the weekend."

Again, I'd suggest SuperDuper instead of time machine.
It's free.
You can download it by clicking this link:

https://shirt-pocket.com/mint/pepper/orderedlist/downloads/download.php?file=https%3A//shirt-pocket.com/downloads/SuperDuper%21.dmg

SuperDuper is incredibly easy to use.
All you have to do (as a new user) is select the source drive (on the left) and the target (on the right, this becomes your backup).

When it's done, take it to the new Mac.

Hmmmm...
Have you already created an account on the NEW Mac?
Or... has it failed during the initial setup routine?

IF you've already created an account, this could lead to problems in the future.
You should consider using the "erase all content and settings" option in System Settings to take the Mac back to "moment zero" -- like it was the very first time you booted it out-of-the box.

Then it will be ready for a completely fresh start.
Just follow the instructions (erase all content...) and the Mac should do the rest.
When done...

Connect the backup drive and start clicking through again.
When setup assistant asks if you wish to migrate from another drive, YES you do.
"Point the way" to the SuperDuper backup and give setup assistant time to "digest" things -- shouldn't take long.

If you want to migrate everything (I see no problem with that), just click "continue" (or whatever that button is).

Then give setup assistant time to do the migration.

When done, you should see your old login screen, just as before.

Good luck.

 

[gilby101]

I'm 12 hrs into a data migration using a Lightning cable and MA between my 2018 MBP and a new Mac Studio.

How fast is "lightning"?

I think there is some confusion here. I suspect @jb102 means Thunderbolt cable (which has a zig-zag lightning-like symbol on it), not a Lightning cable (as used by iPhones, etc.).