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I have a new (to me) used mac coming today. It's a 2010, MacPro 5,1, 3.2 GHz, Quad).

I want to transfer everything from my current MacPro 1,1 to this new one, and I'm looking for friendly advice on how to make this transition as easy and painless as possible.

I'm keeping my current Mac as-is for the rest of its life. so I'll have it to fall back on if something goes wrong with the new one. Along with that, there may be some older apps that won't run on the new mac after its OS is upgraded beyond 10.6.8. If that happens, I won't have to panic.

My current mac runs 10.6.8. The new one runs 10.6.4. I have SuperDuper and Time Machine backups.

I'm thinking my best bet is to use Migration Assistant and select the Time Machine backup. Is that the way to go? Will this update the OS of the new mac from 10.6.4 to 10.6.8, or will I need to do that online before (or after) I do the transfer?

My ultimate goal is to get the new Mac updated to Mavericks by tomorrow (Monday) night.

Thanks for any advice, as long as it's good.

Much appreciated.

Since both Macs are running the same version of OSX and they're both Intel, I'd just start the newer Mac in target mode and clone your existing system drive to the new one. You'll have to reauth DP (and maybe a couple of others), but that should be about it - then upgrade to Mavericks. With Mavericks you'll lose anything that still needs Rosetta, but that would happen no matter which way you upgrade.

'Carbon Copy Clone' will also do an excellent, dependable migration/backup job.

You might end up liking it more than Time Machine! Check it out.

CCC or Super Duper are great. The Clone then Upgrade approach sounds good to me. You might want to let Time Machine do its thing before you update, so you can easily revert if necessary.

Have fun with the new machine Dan. Once you get things rolling, I anticipate big grins!

Thanks for the advice, guys. The new (used) Mac ran Setup Assistant when I booted it, so I just went with that and put my old Mac in target mode and started the transfer. Now I just have to wait a couple of hours before the real fun begins.

I purchased this used 5,1 from http://www.usedmacs.us/, and I have to say I've been really impressed. It was like unpacking a brand new Mac. It came professionally packaged and wrapped and there was not one spec of dust on, or in, this machine. It's extremely quit, even quieter than my old machine, so I'm very happy about that.

So, we'll see. Hope I'm just as happy a month, year, four years from now. Or six hours from now, for that matter.

Done!
Whew!
Thanks!

Check the sig, man.

Stylin'!