Maxine just arrived. Will my 2019 migration approach still work?

[MareLuce]

Context: I come from the Thinkpad world. Transitioned partially at culmination of the "Whither Skylake?" thread with a 2016 i7 MBP.
I still use both a Thinkpad X1 Extreme and a MBP every day. (I'm so much faster with Thinkpad's Breevy vs MacOS's TextExpander for text expansion). So I don't have an intuitive feel for Mac OS guts.

The thrilling news: ❤️ Maxine ❤️ just arrived. 16". 8 TB. 64 GB. M1 Max. 1 week early from a December order.

The bad news: I'm not going to allow myself to watch the Super Bowl until I start the task of migrating.

Migrating From: 2019 almost full 4 TB MBP running Monterey V.current (12.2.1) To: ❤️ Maxine ❤️

I wouldn't say I'm afraid to, but... gosh, last time it became sooo painful. That 2016 MBP --> 2019 MBP migration became a six week soul sucking process Thanksgiving --> Christmas that required 3 new MBPs. It stole time I should have spent with relatives who died in 2020. The 3'rd MBP did not fail.

Looking for first-hand experience here:
What approach will work best with ❤️ Maxine ❤️ 's Monterey OS and M1 apple silicon when migrating tons of data?

DONE: I have several 4 TB Samsung EVO SSDs with 3.7 TB of current data from 2019 4 TB MBP. Including:
1 GoodSync data file only copy.
1 CarbonCopyCleaner full backup.

Preference: Re-install the apps I'm currently using. Then, migrate the data myself. Leave the flotsam and jetsam behind.

Last time the process that eventually worked was one recommended by @Fishrrman and @Vellin
using an external SSD as my intermediate data store.

=== 2 Questions

1) Could someone please remind me why I had to do the "Prepare" phase steps below via the Command-Option-R trick?
(see below "2019 process")

I know it definitely worked when Migration Assistant failed*. Is that still the case?
*At best, 2019 Migration Assistant failed. At worst, running it seemed to kill my brand new 2019 MBP hardware.

2) Re: # 7. in list below "Open the OS installer..."

Is "OS installer" a part of Disk Utility (I don't see it), or is it a different app?

From Apple website, it seems like the preferred way now to re-install the OS is via:

Erase your Mac using Erase Assistant.
Restart your Mac.
Choose Apple menu > Shut Down, press and hold the power button until “Loading startup options” appears, select Options, click Continue, then follow the onscreen instructions.
In the Recovery app window, select Reinstall for your macOS release, click Continue, then follow the onscreen instructions.

=== 2019 process
(I have not opened ❤️ Maxine's ❤️ lid yet, believe it or not.)

Do NOT open the lid.

I) Prepare new MacBook Pro for Migration

1. Open the lid while pressing "Command-Option-R"
This will boot to internet recovery (NOT to "the recovery partition")
2. DO NOT "install" yet. Let the internet utilities load, but DO NOT "install" yet.
3. Open Disk Utility. Go the "View" menu and select "Show all devices"
4. Select the topmost item in the list on the left. This is your physical drive inside.
5. Click the Erase button. Choose APFS with GUID partition format
6. When done, close disk utility.
7. Open the OS installer and install a clean and "unused" copy of the OS
8. When done, you will see the initial setup screen.

I completed normal OS setup.

II) Migrate data

I used GoodSync last time so that I could see file-by-file log of which had problems.
Of my thousands of files, GoodSync logs showed 87 files with an issue.
Of those 87 files, 3 were super important, and losing 1 would have caused a big problem at tax time.

Scary thought: If ❤️ Maxine ❤️ fails, a replacement will take forever.
I feel like I need to breathe carefully around it given my 2019 experience.

 

[wilberforce]

I think you are overthinking this, and setting yourself up for failure and possible data loss by trying to outsmart Apple's migration procedure.
Just clean up your old Mac, exactly follow Apple's step-by-step instructions for migration, interconnect the two Macs with something like a thunderbolt cable when so instructed by the migration assistant, and let it migrate. This works successfully for millions of Apple users who have never heard of MacRumors.
There is no risk: if for some reason you don't like the result you can start over by wiping the drive and reinstalling MacOS.

It's not as if you need to find some complicated procedure from some random people on an internet forum, in order to have a successful migration.

 

[MareLuce]

There is no risk: if for some reason you don't like the result you can start over by wiping the drive and reinstalling MacOS.

Good point!

 

[0_1]

I think you should check with Maxine since you failed the bold their name twice in the post and might make them sad.

 

[MareLuce]

Update for the binary one @0_1:

The precious ❤️Maxine❤️ expressed mild disaproval at that error.

Update for @wilberforce :

However, the good news is - so far, so good in the migration!

2 hrs, 15 min for the 3.75 TB procedure to complete.

No data loss shown in GoodSync comparison logs.

AND, I love the keyboard! I didn’t expect to feel such a difference.
So much better feeling to me than the 2019.

 

[blatantblue]

This post is really weird.

 

[Inutopia]

This post is really weird.

I agree.