TM drive and Migration Assistant

[french frank]

Just bought a new iMac and was discussing using Migration Assistant to move the contents of two older Macs on to the new one. The assistant suggested I could somehow load the contents of the Time Machine drive on to the new machine. I knew I could boot up with the TM drive, but he said the first time I booted up the new machine it would ask me … something or other, automatically. No holding down the Option key and selecting the external drive.

Anyone know what he's talking about? Can I really use the Time Machine drive to transfer data and programmes over to the new machine?

[Anastasius]

In a word. Don't.

As far as I am aware, Migration Assistant only works for transferring from one other older Mac. And it works very, very well and is very, very fast. Using Time Machine to do this can be, shall we say, life threatening...as in losing the will to live. The assistant is talking out of his/her backside.

Plan ahead.

Look at what Applications you have on both machines. Check the versions. Do they run on El Crappo ? (I am assuming that you have no choice but to use it). Let us know what you find out and then we can advise from there.

Next is your data. Photos on your second Mac...easy to import into your new iMac. Music...I'd need to research that a little for you. Other documents. You need to connect up the second older Mac and allow file sharing with your new Mac and then simply drag them across.

Any questions, please please ask or PM. You are very welcome to call me.

[MrGongGong]

Why not just clone one machine then copy that to the new machine?

[Dave2002]

Does your new machine have more backing store than the older machines? I'm guessing it's running the El Capitan version of OS X.

Are you intending to decommission the older machines?

Do you have a picture in your mind of the data you want to move, and the applications you want to keep and use?

Personally I usually take multiple backups of the older machines, including drives containing videos, music etc., then I explicitly copy the files to the new system.
I believe that Migration Assistant could do a good job, but I've never used it. Some people might find it easy and useful, but I prefer to just do things manually - the "hard way".

Really such a lot depends on what data and applications you have. My guess is that really you may not very much - though I'm willing to be told otherwise. Where there can be problems are in areas such as drivers - e.g for printers and hardware, and some applications. There can also be incompatibilities between the OS version and the applications.

I would second the other two who have suggested that you shouldn't even think of using TM to do this. Generating bootable clones is probably a better thing to do, though you shouldn't necessarily need to use such a bootable clone to boot up your system - you could treat it as a file transfer medium, and copy the files to the new machine.

I have perhaps been too cautious in the past, taking multiple clones and TM backups, which I eventually lock up in a filing cabinet. If there are no problems they will never be used, so they represent locked up capital. Maybe it would be better to do that, but then after some while, when confidence in the new system has built up some of the drives could be brought back into use - at least for incremental backups, or to store a body of similar data (e.g videos, audio files, photos).

I do now use TM fairly regularly, and I have tested that I can recover files. I think some people try tools like TM, but then don't check how to do a restore "for real", and then if they ever need to do that, they either don't know how to, or they discover that it doesn't work anyway.

Take great care.

[french frank]

Thanks for the advice, all. I didn't think I was making much sense of what I was told - so what's new? I'll probably employ my friendly geek for a morning to sort everything out. He was horrified when he found out - his opinion - that the high street guys where I bought my second one (secondhand) had used SuperDuper! instead of Migration Assistant to move contents of Machine A to Machine B. My original idea was to get rid of A but I never quite succeeded in doing it . If the content of both machines is moved to the new machine, I guess there'll also be a lot of dupes …

I don't have videos, not much audio and not much by way of pictures - not what I need a computer for. So I'm sure the new machine will be big enough. I don't have any hardware with Thunderbolt either, but there will be adapter cables coming too.

Yep, The Captain, my Captain it is. I'm going to empty the old machines and give them away. I hope.

[Anastasius]

Using SuperDuper is a perfectly acceptable way of migrating. After all, that is exactly what you would do if your hard drive failed in Machine A and you wanted to restore from your backup.Your geek is talking tosh! It's called cloning and is also what MrGG suggested. The only problem in your case is that you have two machines to fit into one as it were and so cloning could be done by using smart copy which only transfers files that are not on the destination machine but TBH I'd not want to try it as I think you would end up with an unholy mess.

Your situation is the type of question I would probably ask on the Apple Community forums.

I hope your geek knows what he is doing - given his incorrect advice.

[MrGongGong]

This is useful

http://dupeguru.en.softonic.com

[Dave2002]

Yep, The Captain, my Captain it is. I'm going to empty the old machines and give them away. I hope.

That sounds quite generous. How old are they, what models?

Apple kit in reasonable condition does have a significant resale value, even for machines which are quite a number of years old. Of course it may be a quite a bit slower than the very latest kit, but it may nevertheless be perfectly serviceable.

You can find details of the machines you have on sites such as this one http://www.everymac.com/mac-identifi...fy-my-mac.html and this can help to determine what kind of market you might have if you decided to sell instead of donate.

A while back I was asked to recover files from someone's inherited machine, but I never did the work. The owner managed to sell the kit (which she didn't really know how to use) for a decent price - I think to an Apple shop. I sold the new drive I had bought specially for the work to a local community organisation.

[Dave2002]

This is useful

http://dupeguru.en.softonic.com

I have Gemini, which was recommended as a good duplicate file detector. Unfortunately I have read reviews of the Mk II version which don't rate that too well. For what I wanted to do, Gemini has been fine, though now, having removed most of the significant dupllcates I don't want to do much more. I used it to find very large files and folders, and this has been helpful. However- this may seem odd - when I get down to just two (2) file copies I am reluctant to delete either one of them as I don't fully trust that this won't leave me with no copy. I'd be happier if I could get a listing of the duplicate files, but my version of Gemini doesn't seem to do that.

The new version I think finds "similar" files. As far as I can tell my version really does find exact copies, so it should be safe to delete one of the copies (though it can also work with multiple disc drives, so it's possible to delete a copy in the "wrong" place.) Deleting "similar" files might result in removing all one's high res audio (e.g. Flac, Alac) files leaving only mp3 "equivalents" -

I might try dupeguru to gain full control of the remaining duplicated files, or at least listings of what and where they are.

I'd recommend making backup copies (using cloning software, such as superduper, carbon copy cloner) after doing modest pruning of the files, but before making very major and severe deletions.

[Anastasius]

There is no way I would waste my time using dupeGuru given the Cons

Wrongly marks out some files as duplicates !!
May miss some files

So how do you know for sure? How will you find out ? How many weeks will it take you ?

[MrGongGong]

There is no way I would waste my time using dupeGuru given the Cons

Wrongly marks out some files as duplicates !!
May miss some files

So how do you know for sure? How will you find out ? How many weeks will it take you ?

In my experience all duplicate finders sometimes miss or make "mistakes"
What I use it for is to make a list of possibles then check and delete
Relying on this kind of thing without human intervention is a recipie for disaster as is changing lanes in a car with autopilot while watching TV

[Dave2002]

There is no way I would waste my time using dupeGuru given the Cons

Wrongly marks out some files as duplicates !!
May miss some files

So how do you know for sure? How will you find out ? How many weeks will it take you ?

Do you have any better suggestions for file duplication detection sofware? I really would like to know, as if there are other tools which would enable me to get a better handle on my files that could be very helpful.

As you may have noticed I have similar reservations about Gemini - but I am very cautious about removing files unless I'm desperate for space, or really sure I've either don't want the file ever again, or am sure I've got a copy. I don't assume that Gemini is always right - though in fact it does look as though the first version (the one I have) does detect exact duplicates.

I wouldn't use a tool for detecting similar files for selecting candidate files for deletion, unless I had a backup copy. Replacing .flac files with .mp3 because they are similar is not a good idea, nor camera RAW files with JPGs - unless one is working (knowingly) with generated 2nd or 3rd generation file copies and has the master files tucked away safely.

[Dave2002]

In my experience all duplicate finders sometimes miss or make "mistakes"
What I use it for is to make a list of possibles then check and delete
Relying on this kind of thing without human intervention is a recipie for disaster as is changing lanes in a car with autopilot while watching TV

Ouch - poor guy - http://www.livescience.com/55273-fir...-fatality.html

http://www.techrepublic.com/article/tesla-driver-dies-in-first-fatality-with-autopilot-what-it-means-for-the-future-of-driverless-cars/

We don't know that this person was actually watching TV, though.

[Anastasius]

Do you have any better suggestions for file duplication detection sofware? I really would like to know, as if there are other tools which would enable me to get a better handle on my files that could be very helpful.

...

Not really. I got gemini on your recommendation but not really given it that much of a try. I just let my hard drive fill up!

[Dave2002]

Not really. I got gemini on your recommendation but not really given it that much of a try. I just let my hard drive fill up!

That's what I normally do too, but after about 3 years the SSD on my MBP has almost filled up, and if I even wanted to go through the pain of installing El C - or any of the other post ML versions I'd have to do significant copying etc. and deletions simply in order to get enough space to do the update.

As I've mentioned earlier - and I think we have agreed - there are features of El C which are tricky compared with ML. The one which for me has been a real killer is the total mess that Spotlight became, though I have sinced discovered that using Finder does get round some or most of the problems - allbeit with a few extra mouse clicks. My daughter was metaphorically tearing her hair out recently as she was trying to find files in Mavericks, whereas on an older machine she could do it easily using the Spotlight there. When I explained that this wasn't her fault, but that Apple had "improved" things so that she couldn't do what she wanted, and suggested another approach bypassing Spotlight altogether things got a lot better. Before that she wanted to throw the whole lot of kit (actually rather high end) in the bin, and I think one of her magic mice might have had an encounter with a wall!

I mentioned the tag feature of El C elsewhere - and actually that can be very useful, though whether it works for long term use I'm not sure. It really works in the sense that one can tag a file with one or more tags, and then stick it somewhere (anywhere - in the wrong folder by accident ...), and the Finder will find it again. It makes sending emails really simple - instead of using drag and drop (which was my earlier practice) into the mail panels, just use the paper clip button, then select the appropriate file by selecting it from the Finder style pop up panel using the tags. Whether longer term it will still be OK I'm not sure.

So now I am thinking of clearing my MBP and installing El C after all. I shall retain Snow Leopard on one machine - though I note that support for some software (e.g Chrome) is now being removed. However it does support some software which I'd really like to keep running.

I hope you didn't get the very latest Gemini - but rather the earlier one which I had installed. It is worth trying - though take care. You might find that with care you can eliminate quite a lot - say 50 Gbytes, which is a useful amount to remove, and that make running and managing your machine easier.