New MBP specs and advantages?

[stubbsonic]

On one hand, my MBP is on the older side (2012). On the other hand, I ended up doing a fresh install in 2021, so there aren't any super old things lingering about on this Mojave machine.

But even after reading these threads, I hear compelling reasons on both sides of the Migration Assistant vs Fresh Install debate.

[HCMarkus]

Setting up my Mac Studio (moving from Intel Mojave), I used Migration Assistant only for System and Network, so I didn't have to set up email accounts and such. If you use Apple's password manager, alot moves across when you sign in to iCloud.

I copied documents and VI data to portable drives and sneaker netted it into the Mac Studio, simply putting the drives in appropriate cases and/or copying the data to the new destination drives.

I downloaded and reinstalled all plugins, VIs and apps. Made a lot easier by the fact I have always recorded serial numbers for plugins in a Word Doc (which opened nicely with Apple's Pages.)

A nice, clean fresh start... But others have reported good success with simply migrating everything using Migration Assistant.

Did I waste some time? Maybe. Is the new Mac running cleanly? Definitely.

[mikehalloran]

Migration Assistant: Network settings? Sure — saves time and there’s no down side.

User data? Unless you mean to do major housekeeping, no reason why not — again, Migration Assistant saves time. You can clean up your work files later—or not.

I will likely reinstall all my VIs, however. Going to 8TB, they will all now install into their default locations and that will clean up a chunk of drive space.

Clean install of Apps is something I recommend when migrating to an M1. Lots of old crap in the support libraries—do you really want to pull that over? I’ve had too many occasions in the last couple years where I’ve had to get support involved because some ancient bit of code is gumming up the works. Twice, I’ve had Apple ready to replace hardware because of an old .kext file. In 2020, Apple was able to figure it out. In 2022, I got lucky and found the Corel culprit, then the Antares license run time. These old libraries weren’t just inconvenient; my Mac was unusable till I found and purged the problems.

[HCMarkus]

Good point re: Data, Mike. If my data was all in one place, I might have been more excited about using Migration Assist to move it. As it stands, there were multiple drives, both sources and as destinations, so M.A. looked like I'd have less control than desired.

I'm certainly with you on the Clean Apps approach... especially when moving to a whole new CPU architecture!

BTW, I dumped Antares for Waves; less expensive and a lot easier to deal with (especially if you have a bunch of Waves plugins, like I do). Plus it is a better real-time tune plugin, which is all I used AT for, what with DP's excellent built-in pitch layer. Like many, I have the pleasure of working with less-than-stellar singers on occasion. Real-Time tune makes the overall tuning process affordable for cost-conscious out of tune crooners (or is that out of croon tuners?), and DP brings those "Whoa" moments into line so the real-time tune doesn't send them into outer space, pitch-wise.

[MW1]

My new MBP will arrive next week. I'm weighing doing a clean install of essentials, vs using Migration Assistant.....

My new MBP M1 Max arrived two days ago so I've just been through exactly this scenario.

In my case I was moving from a Mojave based system but decided to prep the machine as best I could before running Migration Assistant.

Firstly, this meant running a final Time Machine backup to snapshot the old Mojave system.

Then I installed Big Sur (the latest my old machine would allow) and updated all the apps that needed to transition from 32 to 64bit (this included upgrading to DP11)

Then I spent a day or two ruthlessly deleting all the 32 bit apps and everything else I knew would be redundant. This meant repeated deep dives into the Library to root out system files but I actually found that process to be strangely therapeutic.

Then I made a Time Machine backup of the newly cleansed Big Sur system and used that backup for running Migration Assistant (System, Data & Apps) across to the new MBP. The transfer went seamlessly and the new MBP is working great.

Be prepared however for endless prompts from Monterey which seems to be obsessed with security and granting permissions for everything.

I also had to figure out transferring licences - iLok, Waves & NI etc - to authorise on the new system but that's unavoidable no matter which method you use to migrate.

But overall, my experience is that Migration Assistant does its job well providing you do the clean up work in advance.

[stubbsonic]

Thanks for all this info. I really appreciate it. I'll probably re-read it a few times! This definitely gives me more clarity about the risks and approaches involved.

Early last year, when I did the full fresh install and move to Mojave, I took very good notes. Thus, my "past self" will be holding my current-self's hand. (That sounds way more creepy than I expected.)

The other plus is that my current machine is fully functional so there's less risk of loss. The only real "shifting of weight from back foot to front foot" will be with Mail. I officially confess that I still use POP mail-- and have archived emails going back to 1996. I suppose it's like a box of letters I carry with me from house to house. Hopefully, the same steps I used last year will bring all that stuff over ok.

[stubbsonic]

I ended up using the Migration Assistant for everything. Went fine. Email was my main concern, but that went without a hitch.

I was surprised to see that iTunes is gone, so need to get Apple's help getting podcasts, video, and music sorted. So far, this is the change that makes me most grumpy.

Some fonts are installed but not available. I mostly use Courier, but it is not an available choice in the font picker, Font Book, Pages, TextEdit (even though I can see that it is installed). If I open a file that used Courier, it does load.

I still need to update some software, and authorize VI's and plugins. That'll just take time & patience.

Knock wood, I think the hard part is over.

[stubbsonic]

Turns out that font issue just required me to reinstall that one font from my other machine. All's well there.