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Migration Assistant or Time Machine

T

Trimmer2

macrumors member
Original poster
May 19, 2008
76
0
My new MBP should be arriving this week (possibly today) and I'll need to migrate to it from my mid '06 MBP with about 110 Gigs of information.

Should I use Time Machine via Ethernet connection to transfer data or do a direct connect Ethernet via Migration Assistant?
 
Migration assistant without a doubt.

Time Machine is basically backing up your current system with files stored on a drive.

Migration Assistant will just about clone your old Mac onto your new one.

I was pretty shocked at how well it worked in putting my MacBook onto my new MBP. It's literally the exact same computer with all of my settings in a new body.

Plus, MA is basically a 3 or 4 step process that is hard to mess up.
 
When you use MA does it remove all data from the computer you are migrating from? I am adding the MBP to my computers not replacing one.
Basically I don't want to erase the original computer.
Does this make sense?
 
gkorsgard said:
When you use MA does it remove all data from the computer you are migrating from? I am adding the MBP to my computers not replacing one.
Basically I don't want to erase the original computer.
Does this make sense?
Click to expand...

No. You have to use Disk Utility to erase your drive if that is what you want to do. MA will only copy from one drive to another, nothing more. It will not erase or modify any files.
 
Migration Assistant. I used it to move my stuff from my iMac to MacBook (via Ethernet) and it worked like a charm. Just another reason to love Apple.
 
Just wanted to add, MA can use a Time Machine backup as a source.

If you already have a Time Machine backup that is reasonably up to date, it would be quicker to update the Time Machine image and then use that with MA on the new machine.

I went down this route with a new MBP as the image I had from SuperDuper wouldn't restore for some reason. Worked flawlessly.

Good luck,

Tom
 
I'd go with Migration Assistant instead of Time Machine, simply because Migration Assistant is designed for this purpose while Time Machine is designed for recovery in case of catastrophic failure.
 
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