New Mac Pro HD clone?

[nige87]

Hey guys - question here.

I have a Mac Mini, upgrading to a mac pro. I want to be able to clone my hard drive for my Mac Mini (all my applications, folders, etc) to the Mac Pro's hard drive. Will the mac pro still run if I try to do this? It's the same OS, so it should work right?

Any tips would be great on how to do this.. thanks guys!

 

[Transporteur]

It will work, but not as you'd expect it. The installed drivers are not compatible with the Mac Pro's hardware, which results in a hefty performance decrease (50%).

Just finish the installation of OS X on the Mac Pro and use the migration assistant to migrate your data.

 

[philipma1957]

yes transporteur is correct. take you new pro do a standard install. then hook the pro to the mini via a fw800 wire use migration assistant. do not migrate programs /osx

 

[nige87]

urgh... so i have to reinstall everything... nightmare.

I own legit copies of logic + adobe production premium... but if i try to install on another system with the same serial, will it lock me out?

 

[Mac Hammer Fan]

Not a nightmare.
You can import all your applications, documents and preferences from the MacMini, that you have booted with command T and with a firewire cable connected.
But you have to desactivate Adobe software on your Mac Mini first. Then you can reactivate it on the MacPro.

 

[nige87]

Not a nightmare.
You can import all your applications, documents and preferences from the MacMini, that you have booted with command T and with a firewire cable connected.
But you have to desactivate Adobe software on your Mac Mini first. Then you can reactivate it on the MacPro.

So migration assistant can move programs too?

 

[Mac Hammer Fan]

Indeed!

 

[funkahdafi]

It will work, but not as you'd expect it. The installed drivers are not compatible with the Mac Pro's hardware, which results in a hefty performance decrease (50%).

excuse me, but that's total bullocks.

when you clone the mac mini and boot the clone on the mac pro thrn mac os x will, of course, recognize the new hardware and will load the drivers accordingly.

this is not windows. get your facts straight.

@nige: don't worry. just clone the mini. it'll work perfectly at 100%

 

[Transporteur]

excuse me, but that's total bullocks.

when you clone the mac mini and boot the clone on the mac pro thrn mac os x will, of course, recognize the new hardware and will load the drivers accordingly.

this is not windows. get your facts straight.

@nige: don't worry. just clone the mini. it'll work perfectly at 100%

Alright! Go ahead then! When your finished I suggest that you run Geekbench with your new Mac Pro. Good luck!

Please, search the forums when you make assumptions like that!

 

[funkahdafi]

Alright! Go ahead then! When your finished I suggest that you run Geekbench with your new Mac Pro. Good luck!

Please, search the forums when you make assumptions like that!

It's not an assumption, it's called knowledge. Knowledge about how Mac OS X works, and experience by doing this myself.

A standard Mac OX X installation contains "all" necessary drivers for "all" Mac platforms. That's why you never need to install any drivers when you plug in any supported hardware. It just works.

Now what happens if Mac OS X boots up and finds new hardware? It just uses the drivers for that hardware.

Yes, it's that easy. Prove me wrong.

 

[rtrt]

a

 

[Transporteur]

Yes, it's that easy. Prove me wrong.

I'd love to, unfortunately I can't find the threads. They aren't that old, though...

Anyway, two or more users here tried to simply clone their Mini disc to the new Mac Pro (against all recommendations not to) and although it worked, they reported the system to be slow which was confirmed by Geekbench that reported an average result of 50% the score of the machine.

Apparently the Mini does not include all drivers for the Mac Pro's hardware. The explanation for that is quite simple. The OS X version they ship with their machines is hardware specific. You can not simply put in a Mac Mini retail OS X CD in the Mac Pro and expect it to work, it does not come with the mandatory drivers.

Enough prove, or do you still rely on your "knowledge"?

 

[dyn]

Alright! Go ahead then! When your finished I suggest that you run Geekbench with your new Mac Pro. Good luck!

Please, search the forums when you make assumptions like that!

Geekbench is a theoretical benchmark. The problem with such benchmarks is that they are theoretical. It doesn't test real world usage. Then there is another problem which is the biggest with benchmarks. 99% of the people have no clue how to interpret them or simply can't interpret them. You seem to be one of the latter since you're telling someone to use a benchmark to test the performance degradation. If performance declines by 50% you don't need a benchmark telling you that since you will notice it. You only use a benchmark to check for the tiny performance degradation and what could be causing it.

If you do search the forums you'd have noticed that quite a lot of people have cloned their drives. Some of them experienced several problems because their new Mac was too new. Meaning that the current OS X install on the old drive didn't have the appropriate drivers and things like that. Doing a reinstall with the install media that came with the new Mac resolves all those problems. Some people who cloned have noticed small and strange problems. Pinpointing what the cause is of these problems is nothing more then guessing. You mostly can not pinpoint the cause. In cases like these something could have gone wrong while cloning or something else could have happened. A lot of people have resolved these problems simply by reinstalling their system. There aren't many people who experienced performance problems like a decrease of 50%.

There are other and better reasons to not clone a system and do a clean install instead. You reinstall because you can clean up your Mac: revise what you've got installed, what data is on it, etc. and you avoid problems that could arise when cloning a drive and using an old OS X install (with all the mess that has accumulated over time (OS X does pollute like every other OS!)).

A standard Mac OX X installation contains "all" necessary drivers for "all" Mac platforms. That's why you never need to install any drivers when you plug in any supported hardware. It just works.

Talking about knowledge...this isn't true for new hardware, only for old hardware. New hardware has slight adjustments so they have patched install media. This is why cloning your old C2D MBP drive to your new Core i5 MBP rendered the new Core i5 MBP useless since it would crash upon booting. Why? Because it didn't have support for the new Core i5 stuff. The install media that came with the Core i5 MBP was a patched 10.6.4 install to support the new Core i5 stuff. The following OS X update contains these patches meaning as of 10.6.5 you can clone your old C2D MBP drive to your Core i5 drive without any problems. That's why you need to wait for a new minor OS X release (such as 10.6.5) if you buy a new Mac.

Now what happens if Mac OS X boots up and finds new hardware? It just uses the drivers for that hardware.

That only happens when OS X has drivers for that hardware. It obviously can't load drivers if it doesn't have the drivers it needs In the end this will render a system useless or unbootable like my example of the Core i5 MBP.

Edit: the current Mac Pro, MBP's, MBA's, etc. are all supported as of 10.6.5. So any system running 10.6.5 can be cloned successfully (in theory since cloning in general can give you headaches).

 

[nanofrog]

That only happens when OS X has drivers for that hardware. It obviously can't load drivers if it doesn't have the drivers it needs In the end this will render a system useless or unbootable like my example of the Core i5 MBP.

Same way with Vista. On the initial installation, the user has to install the correct drivers. But once in, the automatic update can find newer ones if they exist (and are on MS's site).

I was pleasantly surprised to see this change with Win7 (uses hardware polling to locate drivers, which really simplifies the installation process for users).

Perhaps 10.7 will follow suit (potential to make a clean OS installation an easier process for users). It's not as profound an issue perhaps than the gazillions of PC's and their main board + add-on hardware variations, but it could still make life easier.

 

[Transporteur]

Geekbench is a theoretical benchmark. The problem with such benchmarks is that they are theoretical. It doesn't test real world usage. Then there is another problem which is the biggest with benchmarks. 99% of the people have no clue how to interpret them or simply can't interpret them. You seem to be one of the latter since you're telling someone to use a benchmark to test the performance degradation. If performance declines by 50% you don't need a benchmark telling you that since you will notice it. You only use a benchmark to check for the tiny performance degradation and what could be causing it.

Don't make assumptions about people you don't know. Thank you!

I've been long enough in the industry to know what benchmarking means, and the reason I mentioned it is because the feeling about the systems performance is very subjective, especially to people who have never worked on a Mac Pro before (hence can't be sure whether the performance they experience is right, or not. I hope you see where I'm going with this!). For such people, a quick indication whether the cloning was successful or not, is a benchmark.

If you do search the forums you'd have noticed that quite a lot of people have cloned their drives. Some of them experienced several problems because their new Mac was too new. Meaning that the current OS X install on the old drive didn't have the appropriate drivers and things like that. Doing a reinstall with the install media that came with the new Mac resolves all those problems. Some people who cloned have noticed small and strange problems. Pinpointing what the cause is of these problems is nothing more then guessing. You mostly can not pinpoint the cause. In cases like these something could have gone wrong while cloning or something else could have happened. A lot of people have resolved these problems simply by reinstalling their system. There aren't many people who experienced performance problems like a decrease of 50%.

Well, you do nothing else than confirming my statement. The problem is missing drivers, mainly due to different OS X versions or specialised OS X versions for a single product line.


However, you said that all systems are supported by 10.6.5 (which I agree with), but does that automatically imply that these installations are 100% interchangeable?
Let's assume we have a MB Air delivered with 10.6.5 and a Mac Pro (of whatever line, shouldn't matter). My bet is that if you simply clone the system it won't work right. I really can't believe that the Air's system has all the drivers for a Mac Pro. Why would Apple pack their systems with non-retail OS X versions then? Doesn't make sense.

An updated system may well be different (IIRC OS X updates are the same size for all systems, hence should include all new drivers).

 

[goMac]

It's not an assumption, it's called knowledge. Knowledge about how Mac OS X works, and experience by doing this myself.

A standard Mac OX X installation contains "all" necessary drivers for "all" Mac platforms. That's why you never need to install any drivers when you plug in any supported hardware. It just works.

Now what happens if Mac OS X boots up and finds new hardware? It just uses the drivers for that hardware.

Yes, it's that easy. Prove me wrong.

I've been a Mac tech for years, and this is the single most incorrect thing I've ever read on this forum. Do NOT follow the above post.

Mac OS X, for a long while, has only loaded drivers onto the hard drive for your current hardware. They did this to reduce the size of their software updates.

You, can, however, get the hard drive prepped into a cloneable state. Download the latest "Combo" Mac OS X update from Apple, and install it, even if it's the same version that you already have installed. This will prep the drive with all drivers from all machines.

Again, I've worked as a Mac tech for years cloning machines. The only way cloning works (and this is also from Apple) is to install the combo update first.

Do not take the advice above and assume it just works. I've seen a lot of new techs assume this, and it wastes a lot of time.

 

[Transporteur]

Mac OS X, for a long while, has only loaded drivers onto the hard drive for your current hardware. They did this to reduce the size of their software updates.

You, can, however, get the hard drive prepped into a cloneable state. Download the latest "Combo" Mac OS X update from Apple, and install it, even if it's the same version that you already have installed. This will prep the drive with all drivers from all machines.

That answers my questions as well.
Thank you very much for clarifying this, goMac!

 

[goMac]

That answers my questions as well.
Thank you very much for clarifying this, goMac!

No problem. This also comes with the obvious disclaimer that the combo update has to be newer than the machines you're cloning to.

I know a lot of techs who buy a bunch of new machines, and then have to wait on the combo update to update their existing images for the new machines.

 

[rtrt]

a

 

[nige87]

Thanks for clearing this up! So, combo update and then clone... Nice! Can't wait, just ordered a 2009 quad core.

I've been a Mac tech for years, and this is the single most incorrect thing I've ever read on this forum. Do NOT follow the above post.

Mac OS X, for a long while, has only loaded drivers onto the hard drive for your current hardware. They did this to reduce the size of their software updates.

You, can, however, get the hard drive prepped into a cloneable state. Download the latest "Combo" Mac OS X update from Apple, and install it, even if it's the same version that you already have installed. This will prep the drive with all drivers from all machines.

Again, I've worked as a Mac tech for years cloning machines. The only way cloning works (and this is also from Apple) is to install the combo update first.

Do not take the advice above and assume it just works. I've seen a lot of new techs assume this, and it wastes a lot of time.