Install boot drive from 09 Mini into 2010 MacPro?

[bzollinger]

Hello,

I posted this over in the OSX forum, but didn't get very far.

If I pull the HDD out of my mini, and install it into my new MacPro as the boot drive will the system accept it and go along willingly? Or will it freak the new MP out? What will OSX do when it realizes it has been upgraded from a mini to an MP??

I've got a drive sled to adapt the 2.5" to 3.5" so the size and bay isn't a concern, only how the system will react.

If it won't work what's the best way to get my system and all my apps installed on that HDD in the MP, that is currently in the mini?

Can I do a carbon copy clone of the mini to an external, put it in the MP, format, re-install OSX, then use the migration wizard to pull the data from the clone?

Or should I do a full time machine backup of the mini, put it in the MP, format, re-install OSX then do a time machine restore?

I didn't think this should be very tricky but once I started thinking about it, the trickier it becomes...

 

[milo]

You don't want to do that, potential for lots of problems.

Easiest is to use Migration Assistant. But even that may cause issues if you transfer everything, I usually use it for the basics and move other things manually and reinstall software.

 

[2contagious]

using the migration assistant makes me feel dirty.. I always do everything manually at least you it's a clean install then.

 

[bzollinger]

So I can do a clean install of OSX and all my apps, then what is the best way to restore my LightRoom catalogs/database, iTunes library, iPhoto content, iWeb sites, etc?

When I installed the XT HDD in the mini it was easy because I just installed OSX then used migration assistant to transfer everything I needed from the G5.

Now I've got to figure out a way to use the same HDD but reinstall everything with the least amount of pain.....

 

[milo]

With iTunes, iPhoto, and iWeb you should be able to just copy the folders over to the new machine and point the apps to the proper folders.

There aren't many apps that require moving user content in a way that's hard to figure out.

 

[bzollinger]

Will this work?

Can I use carbon copy cloner to backup selected items on the mini to an external drive, then restore them to the MP after the XT has been formatted and OSX has been cleanly installed?

 

[milo]

Why do you want to boot your MP from a 2.5 drive? Is it an SSD?

 

[sboerup]

Here is what I did last night:
-fresh install onto my SSD
-put in HD#2 (which was my home folder), and pointed OSX account to use the new home folder and restarted
-this grabbed most of my application settings, dock, etc
-then I dragged over the Applications that were small (you can always reinstall if they didn't work right, but 90% of my apps copied right over just fine)
-installed major applications like Adobe suite, LR, etc

I did this all in less than 45 mins or so, back up and running and applications are running as smooth as possible.

Migration assistant is just lame, if you already have your Home folder on a separate drive, most of you settings will stay the same, just need to copy the apps over and your golden

 

[tomscott1988]

It will work perfectly, i no this isnt the best way of doing things but instead of taking my mac to uni, i just used to nick the drive out of it put it in a caddy and boot it on the imacs at uni. Works perfectly.

With macs there is no problem with drivers like windows, your os is not just installed for your specific computer and has all the information to pull it and use it in another mac. I do this many times with my laptop drives with my mac pro, works a treat. Although i do not advise using a 2.5" HDD in a mac pro it basically makes upgrading to a pro pointless and adds a bigger bottleneck than a normal 3.5" drive as they are faster. Buy a 3.5" drive, buy a caddy and CCC (carbon copy clone it) although a fresh install will make everything alot faster, less fragmentation etc (i know macs arnt supposed to but they do slow alittle in time) then all your data will be written in a linear fashion meaning your drive will be at optimal performance.

 

[bzollinger]

Why do you want to boot your MP from a 2.5 drive? Is it an SSD?

The seagate momentus XT is a hybrid drive, so my thought is that with the density of 500GB at 7200RPM, and the 4GB of SSD it should be faster than the 1TB that it comes with....

 

[bzollinger]

Thanks for the input guys. I seems that I was making this harder that it really is...

I work and rebuild every flavor of windows on a daily/weekly basis so I guess I'm just used to it being a pain.

I hardly ever have to mess with my mac, and I don't buy new ones very often!

 

[thagomizer]

Migration assistant is safe and easy. I have used it several times, moving from laptop to desktop, and vice versa, and it has never left anything behind.

Maybe some apps would place files in strange places that it wouldn't catch, but I don't know of any.

 

[bzollinger]

Update

I decided to just pop in the 500GB Momentus XT that was in the mini. After selecting it as the startup disk, and a reboot, everything works great!

Thanks for the input everyone.

 

[jjahshik32]

Just reinstall OSX into the drive with the Mac Pro's install disc.

 

[bzollinger]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_0_2 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/532.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/4.0.5 Mobile/8A400 Safari/6531.22.7)

Just reinstall OSX into the drive with the Mac Pro's install disc.

I'm doing that now because my geekbench score is terrible!

 

[Sean Dempsey]

You don't want to do that, potential for lots of problems.

What?

I've copied the same drives from Mac Pro's to imacs, then from the imac to macbooks, then back to different imacs, then back to macbook pros, and back to external FW drives on the Mac Pro...

All from the same original Install of Tiger that came with my Mac Pro. I upgraded it to Leopard and Snow Leopard, but all I do is either swap the physical drives, or use SuperDuper to just clone it back and forth and back and forth.

I've never wiped and installed. The same Tiger install that shipped with my mac pro has been swapped/cloned to maybe 15 computers.


Absolutley nothing bad will happen. Take the 2.5" drive, put it in a caddy, and boot up the Mac Pro. All that will happen is that it will take 30 extra seconds to build the new kexts, but after that, it's flawless.

Just do a complete OS X update first so that you have all the latest drivers, but that's it.

 

[Sean Dempsey]

It will work perfectly, i no this isnt the best way of doing things but instead of taking my mac to uni, i just used to nick the drive out of it put it in a caddy and boot it on the imacs at uni. Works perfectly.

With macs there is no problem with drivers like windows, your os is not just installed for your specific computer and has all the information to pull it and use it in another mac. I do this many times with my laptop drives with my mac pro, works a treat. Although i do not advise using a 2.5" HDD in a mac pro it basically makes upgrading to a pro pointless and adds a bigger bottleneck than a normal 3.5" drive as they are faster. Buy a 3.5" drive, buy a caddy and CCC (carbon copy clone it) although a fresh install will make everything alot faster, less fragmentation etc (i know macs arnt supposed to but they do slow alittle in time) then all your data will be written in a linear fashion meaning your drive will be at optimal performance.

Can someone translate this to American? Too many UK colloquialisms.

 

[alphaod]

Can someone translate this to American? Too many UK colloquialisms.

The problem isn't the choice of words, but the fact the author writes using shorthand (for example: "no" instead of "know"), lack of proper punctuation, capitalization, etc.

Anyways, fixes in bold:

It will work perfectly; I know this isn't the best way of doing things, but instead of taking my mac to my university, I used to remove the drive from the hard drive sled and boot it on the iMacs at my university. Works perfectly.

With Macs there is no problem with drivers like there the problem with Windows: your OS is not just installed for your specific computer, but is installed with all the data required to move it from one Mac to another. I do this often with my laptop drives in my Mac Pro—works very well. I do not advise using a 2.5" HDD in a Mac Pro because it makes upgrading to a Mac Pro pointless and adds a bigger bottleneck than that of a normal 3.5" drive. Buy a 3.5" drive, a sled, and CCC (to clone it). A fresh install will make everything a lot faster, have less fragmentation, etc. (I know Mac are not supposed to slow down, but they do slow down a little over time); all your data will be written sequentially and your drive will perform optimally.

 

[bzollinger]

Okay, installing the drive from the mini worked well, but it crippled the performance on my new MP. After doing an archive reinstall of OSX, the geekbench scores went from 5000 to 10000!!

So if you do a hard drive swap like this you might want to take a look at the performance of your computer....