Best Way To Transfer Data To New Mac

I know this question has been asked ad naseum, but I can't seem to find exactly what I'm looking for today...
My new iMac arrives today (w00t!) and I want to transfer all my data over to the new computer. But I'm coming from a Mac that is four years old (though still running Lion) and there's probably a lot of crap on the old machine like corrupt preferences and whatnot, and I don't really want all that baggage coming over with me. I obviously want to transfer over my documents, iTunes and iPhoto Libraries and all the iWeb stuff and whatnot. I'm not afraid to reinstall my apps, if that's the ideal scenario and I don't care if my settings and dock reverts to deault, if that's the best way to do this. So I'm trying to determine the best (and possibly fastest) way to load up the new Virgin machine. I have the ability to connect the two computers via Firewire and I also have an up-to-date Firewire Time Machine Backup of everything as well. Any and all advice is appreciated. And don't be afraid to tell me I'm crazy and that I shouldn't worry about corrupt stuff and I should just Set Up Assistant or Migration Assistant (though I hear Set Up is better?) Thanks!

If all you want to migrate is the data files then use Pondini's Setup Assistant guide as instructed. It will ask what you want migrated however if you only choose data it will migrate ALL of your data files. If you have some files you don't want to migrate then it may be best to start the old machine in Target mode after setting up the new machine then you can pick and choose what data files you want to copy over to the new machine.

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Attachments:
Diagram.png ‏158 KB

Zouhair wrote:
I've set the loop timer in the first frame to 4 clock ticks of 80MHz, so I imagine that what follows should not work under 20MHz, Am I mistaken?
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Best way to transfer everything on new hard drive for mac book pro

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oh mighty Hatter, I knew you'd have helpful guidance to offer! And thank you. You've confirmed my anxieties about the Sonnet card; kind of a 'too much, too quickly' sort of thing. And it's not that Sonnet's not a good company. Just everything to do with new technologies and the growth curve we all, manufacturers and users, go through when they come out. And, for sure, the new Mac Pro's are new technology; the single biggest forward leap in Apple's top-of-the-line machines for some time far as I can tell. Just reading at Intel's website about the Nehalem's is a joy!
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Interesting to read about the problems people have had with Sonnet's 2.17 update in PPC's... In this computer, my PowerMac G5 dual 2.7ghz, I have a Sonnet 'Tempo Sata X4P' controller card. I downloaded and installed 2.17 and got the same troubles; no cut, no paste, no 'drag and drop' etc. It was miserable.
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thanks Hatter. I'll let you know how things go, including what happens with the SSD. I don't have speed test software so I won't be able to track it's performance like that guy in the post you gave me did...
JQ
ps- Gotta love that ILLogic fellow eh? Talk about not getting the essence!

Best way to transfer data from one MBP to another

Hi there,
In few days time I'll be swaping MBP 15 Retina (os 10.9.3) for new one. Some thech issues with the current one. Have to send old and will get new.
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Make a bootable backup/clone of your current machine onto an ext HD. Better than restoring from TM. Then, when you get the new machine, on first boot (assuming whoever's providing it to you hasn't already set it up), follow the steps in Pondini's Setup New Mac guide, migrating from the bootable backup/clone.

What is the best way to consolidate data on two Macs?

Hi All,
About to embark on a small project to move all my data on to my MacBook before finally saying goodbye to my trusty iMac. In order to do this I'll be upgrading the HDD on the MacBook to a large one and using Time Machine to restore all the original data onto the new drive. This bit I'm good with as I did it before when I upgraded the drive on my old iMac.
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Just to summarise the state my data is in currently and the approach I currently intend to take.
Have the Mobile Me service so Mail, Address Book, Calendars and all that stuff are all synced across both machines anyway.
Applications - Some stuff on the old Mac that I no longer user but nothing here that I really want to migrate. Some specific application stuff is mentioned below.
Movies - This is the bit that I'm most concerned about. Have a lot of legacy iMovie stuff on the old iMac which I'd like to keep. iDVD as well. Not sure of the best way to get this across and maybe it even warrants a separate discussion. Aside from that most of my older video stuff and projects are on the iMac with the newer stuff on the MacBook. I'm unaware of any function to export and import this but I have a large HDD which I can use to copy stuff over and am going to look into this a bit further. There will be a small amount of duplication here but this is manageable.
Documents - Will just copy these across and organise them as and when I need them. Again, a small amount of duplication but this is manageable.
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Pictures - Bit complicated this. Most of my stuff on the old iMac but some newer albums on the new MacBook. No duplication so presuming I can just export the library off the old iMac and import it on to the new MacBook.
No websites or anything like that.
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OK, seeing as no-one replied (presumably because a lot of this information is on the forums in bits elsewhere) here's how I've got on so far.
Applications - just went through them. About the only one I needed was my media server app. Just downloaded and re-installed, had a quick look back though my email to find the license key and it all went on fine. Installation never seemed quite right on my old machine so solved that problem too.
Movies - New iMovies just copied across the clips and projects into their respective folders. Seems to have worked but haven't checked it all that thoroughly. Some duplicate footage here but I can trim this out at some point when I get a chance to go through here.
Documents - Just copied these across.
Photos - used an app called iPhoto Library Manager. You can download for free but have to pay to use the part that consolidates your libraries. Possibly if I was willing to spend a bit more time I could have got away without using this but given I didn't know the state of my different libraries and just how many duplicates I had this was too much of a convenience to ignore. Also got my library into a state where I can now spend a few hours organising it a bit better with Faces / Events etc.
Not attempted Music or iPhone sync yet as been stuck trying to solve a problem with my power adapter.

What is the quickest way to transfer data from one Mac to another?

I just bought a Macbook Air, and using the Migration Assitant, it says that it will take 32 hours to transfer data from my old Macbook to the Macbook Air.
There must be a quicker way! What happens if I abort?

Unless you can use Thunderbolt Target Disk Mode, the fastest means is to use a Time Machine backup from an external drive, using the quickest port you have compatible with that drive.
However, I would NEVER, ever use Migration Asssistant for a new Mac from an old one. Setup Assistant is exponentially better, even if you have to start over.
Read this.
http://pondini.org/OSX/Setup.html

Best Way To Transfer Data To New Mac

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