Memory from old mac to new

[TorontoSS]

Hi guys,

I had a question about storage. My 2009 MBP had a 500GB hard drive. (I bought this refurbished and got lucky). I barely used this. I normally had about 400GB of free space. Until I started using time machine - now I've got closer to 300GB of space. That's fine. I had no problem with that. Most of the space allocation for the hard drive was in "other". I'm assuming time machine took most of the "other" allocation.

I've now bought a rMBP with a 256GB SSD. My space allocation on my 2009 mac is about 8GB of music, 3GB of photos, documents (word, which don't take up much space) and about 40GB of video (some of which I can easily delete or just put on a hard drive I have which is 500GB - which I divide for space and back ups). The rest of the space is allocated to apps and "other". Other takes up most of all of this.

Now here are my questions:

1. If I transfer my files through time machine, will the "other" space also transfer? Or is it best to just transfer files through the hard drive by dragging appropriate folders? I'm fine with either to be honest.
2. Is there a lot of "other" space simply because I had a lot available?
3. How much space is actually available on a 256 drive? If I keep my videos on a Separate hard drive, I don't think I should have a problem right? I don't have games etc.

Thanks in advance!

 

[Fishrrman]

If you feel that you need to "pick and choose" what files you migrate from the old MacBook to the new, I'd suggest:

... that you copy everything to the external hard drive.

Then, connect the external to the new MacBook, and "manually migrate" things a little at a time.

This way you can bring over the essential stuff, and "let the non-essential stuff be".

That's how I've done it, in the past...

 

[TorontoSS]

that's a better idea. I was fine with transferring all of it from old to new. but it seems this may prevent the "other" stuff from coming in. ("Other" being what is classified this way when a MacBook gives a summary of your memory usage".

 

[TorontoSS]

Can anyone actually clarify if this huge amount of Other Data will be transferred? Some will yes but will all? I'm assuming much of this is time machine related.

 

[TorontoSS]

If anyone is interested in knowing, you should know, the "other stuff" is transferred. i did a manual transfer which I think was better. There's a lot of stuff in the iTunes folder which is the bulk of the other stuff in my computer.

 

[hallux]

Pretty sure the TM data stored on the drive will show as "backups" when looking at the space used. "Other" would encompass data that doesn't fit in one of the categories listed so that would be PDFs, Word documents, Virtual HDD's for VMs (if you use those), a TrueCrypt container, etc.

 

[TorontoSS]

Yup you're right. I learned this the hard way - migrating till 130am when I should have been preparing for an interview! (Doing that today).

In my case it was a lot of itunes stuff. I think a lot of apps accumulated which I don't use. I wonder if icloud storage space would take that up. I probably have loads of videos In the itunes folder I don't need which I bought.