question, are you guys...
connecting a patch cable from each system to a router ?
connecting a single patch cable to each system ?
using a crossover cable and connecting the single cable to each system?
the reason i'm asking is that I always assumed you had to either use a crossover or a router?
First, thanks hooper2 for the cat6 info.. I didn't even bother to check my network cables and have used stuff that has been around for 10 years. Went out and bought some cat6 cables from Fry's and now I do find my gigabit network to be snappier and overall faster and more stable. I also redid my migration assistant and was much faster than the first time around due to the cable and me stop using wifi on the notebook end.
So I finally got everything working perfectly with a successful and smooth transfer. Hopefully this information will be helpful for people might want to do something similar, in my case, transferring from my existing Mac air notebook to my new Macpro computer... and to answer your question Mainomega,
You can use the Migration Assistant with ethernet either having both computer hook up to a router Or they can be hooked up directly to each other through the ethernet cable. You do not need to use a crossover cable to directly connect 2 computers together. I know you used to have to use a crossover for that, but I at least know my Macpro doesn't require that anymore and most modern network devices don't anymore.
Previously I stated the migration assistant crash before it finish when I tried it the first time (see my previous post), so I went out and got myself a USB to Ethernet cord so that I don't have to transfer out of the Mac air using wifi and I hook up the USB to Ethernet to my Macpro directly with a new Cat6 cable. If I was using a straight gigabit ethernet connection out of my notebook, the transfer would of went by much faster, but that is the downside of Macbook Air in that it doesn't have a native ethernet port...
Anyway, when I have this hookup and I open Migration Assistant (MA), it tells me I didn't finish the last migration and it ask me if I want to finish it, so I said yes to see what happens. It tries to do it for a long time but it didn't seem to go anywhere trying to resume the last migration, so I quit that and decide to redo the whole system on the new Macpro.
So I reinstall OSX leopard and wipe the HD clean. I wanted to do this because 1) the last migration was not complete and I want to have a clean slate with no extra / duplicate files dangling around before I do MA again. 2) because it couldn't migrate to the same user name, it migrated to a new user name the last time and I didn't really want that.. (more on this later as I found out how to get around this)
So once I finish reinstalling OSX, the OSX install / setup screen ask me if I want to transfer setting from another computer.. So I said yes, and I choose my Mac Air and this time I am transferring through the direct ethernet connection (found some use for the 2nd ethernet port on my macpro
)...
The Macpro found the Mac Air and it started the transfer from right there, no user name conflict problem because it was part of the install OSX setup and no user acct has been created yet.. So this is how to get around the user name conflict problem if you want to keep the same user name as your other computer. Basically, if skip this installation transfer, created an account of the same name, get into OSX and open MA from there and try to do a transfer, you will have to rename / create a new user account for MA to transfer your settings and files from the other computer to. If your old user name is Tom, and the new computer you set it to also Tom, MA will see this as a conflict and ask you to change it before you can do the transfer. It basically creates another user account and transfer to there instead.
So after a few hours of transfer, when I woke up this morning, everything was done. Transfer was successful and all the apps and settings (even all the small utilities...) are all setup on my new computer. Coming from many years of Windows, this is really really awesome!!
Hope others might find this info helpful.
Cheers.
