Migration asst and iTunes ... Help

[wdh777]

So got the new iMac and I'll use migration asst tonight to transfer from the old iMac. I want to give the old iMac to the kids so I'll deactivate iTunes on it delete a bunch of video and songs since the hard drive is full on it. The new iMac has a bigger hard drive so I'll activate iTunes and use that as my primary computer to sync iPads, phones and touches. I have about 400 gig in my iTunes library so I manually sync all six of our family devices. My understanding is the first time I sync with the new iMac I will be prompted to recopy everything to my devices. If I automatically sync it would take time but not be that big of a deal. But since I manually sync my understanding is that it will clear all six devices and I will need to remanually sync all of them which is a huge hassle. Is his true? Is there a way to avoid this. Thanks for the feedback from all the experts here.

 

[wdh777]

Answered my own question

So I answered my own question. First of all migration assistant ran great. It took about 8 hours but really worked well. So I tried to sync my ipad expecting the worst case scenario that it would get erased and I would have to manually sync it. To my great surprise it didn't. It just picked up where I left off with the old mac and didn't have to recopy all the information. I wonder why apple told me that itunes would want to recopy all the files on my ipad since it was syncing with a new computer? Hopefully this isn't going to occur at a later time but so far so good....

 

[blevins321]

So I answered my own question. First of all migration assistant ran great. It took about 8 hours but really worked well. So I tried to sync my ipad expecting the worst case scenario that it would get erased and I would have to manually sync it. To my great surprise it didn't. It just picked up where I left off with the old mac and didn't have to recopy all the information. I wonder why apple told me that itunes would want to recopy all the files on my ipad since it was syncing with a new computer? Hopefully this isn't going to occur at a later time but so far so good....

As long as the actual iTunes library files are transferred along with the media, iTunes doesn't care what computer it is run on (aside from activations, that is). I have my iTunes library (not just media) stored on a NAS that is shared between my iMac and Mini HTPC. I can plug in and fully sync at will between the two machines.

 

[Zen0Jin]

So got the new iMac and I'll use migration asst tonight to transfer from the old iMac. I want to give the old iMac to the kids so I'll deactivate iTunes on it delete a bunch of video and songs since the hard drive is full on it. The new iMac has a bigger hard drive so I'll activate iTunes and use that as my primary computer to sync iPads, phones and touches. I have about 400 gig in my iTunes library so I manually sync all six of our family devices. My understanding is the first time I sync with the new iMac I will be prompted to recopy everything to my devices. If I automatically sync it would take time but not be that big of a deal. But since I manually sync my understanding is that it will clear all six devices and I will need to remanually sync all of them which is a huge hassle. Is his true? Is there a way to avoid this. Thanks for the feedback from all the experts here.

Use Time Machine to make a backup of your system.

Then, first time you turn on your iMac, you can choose to transfer over everything from that Time Machine Backup, which includes your iTunes library, applications, user settings and files.