restore new MBA from a time machine back up, or go fresh and just manually add stuff?

[ki2594]

Hi all,

Good to see everyone all lively about their new laptops and such. Just ordered myself a new Air and was wondering how most of you go about moving all your info.

Migration assistant is great, i just don't want it to bog down my new computer from the get go in case there's any extra extra files all around the backup from the old macbook pro i have. But maybe I shouldn't have to worry about that? This will be my first solid state drive as well, so I'm assuming speed won't really be impacted.

I guess I've basically answered my own question here, but do you guys start fresh with new laptops or just go from back up? My only main things I'd want is my music collection and my applications like photoshop and stuff to move over.

 

[palpatine]

Hi all,

Good to see everyone all lively about their new laptops and such. Just ordered myself a new Air and was wondering how most of you go about moving all your info.

Migration assistant is great, i just don't want it to bog down my new computer from the get go in case there's any extra extra files all around the backup from the old macbook pro i have. But maybe I shouldn't have to worry about that? This will be my first solid state drive as well, so I'm assuming speed won't really be impacted.

I guess I've basically answered my own question here, but do you guys start fresh with new laptops or just go from back up? My only main things I'd want is my music collection and my applications like photoshop and stuff to move over.

Fresh. I intend to keep my music in Google and on my external drive with my iTunes library. Everything important that I had was already in Dropbox, so I just synced. It should be done downloading shortly. The migration assistant is cool, but I prefer to make sure I don't bring over any old stuff I don't need.

 

[angemon89]

I'm also a Freshie. I simply saved my documents folder, iTunes folder and iPhoto library onto an external drive. Set up my MBA as new. And dragged those things back in.

It just feels newer when you do it like that (at least to me). Of course, if you have to install alot of Apps then maybe going fresh isn't the best option. I don't mind re-installing my apps though.

 

[ki2594]

how do you guys move over things like Photoshop and what not? I do prefer that fresh way as well because it does "feel" newer, but apps are my main concern then.

I don't have a ton of apps, just those big ones like the office suite, logic, and photoshop.

 

[mitty]

Moving Office is such a pain (well, Office 2011) because you have to ring MS to get them to release the old machine so you can reinstall it on the new one. So much so in fact that I'm probably going to go with Open Office or something (or maybe just Google Docs) this time round.

All my personal files are now in Skydrive (yay, 25GB of online storage for free). The only thing I really need to move is my itunes library, iphoto and Aperture Libraries.

But agreed with above, the "fresh" approach is a much nicer experience then restoring from a backup or using the migration assistant.

 

[GfPQqmcRKUvP]

I'm also a Freshie. I simply saved my documents folder, iTunes folder and iPhoto library onto an external drive. Set up my MBA as new. And dragged those things back in.

I play on doing this as well. It's been a while since I got a new computer, but wouldn't migration assistant be able to do the same thing (move over only what you want and keep everything else off)?

 

[kristiano]

Just wanted to know if you can install via Time Machine even if the external drive you back up on is only USB 2.0-capable right?

I ask because I know you can't use migration assistant with USB.

Anyone have any idea how long the Time Machine transfer will take with about 160GB of data to move?