Moving to a new computer - best way to do it?

[justinhill]

Touch wood, my Pro Tools setup is completely stable at the moment and works fine - apart from the computer not being powerful enough for it. I'm about to receive my fancy trashcan Mac Pro and I'm thinking about how to set it up.

Every time I've replaced a Mac in the past I've simply cloned the old machine onto the new one (or even sometimes just switched the HD over). Doing it this way now would save time and save me having to use my brain. But I've never done this on a machine with a full-blown, used in anger, needed all the time, Pro Tools system on it.

So should I do it a different way? Am I setting myself up for problems down the line if I do this? Should I give up a weekend to installing everything from scratch, including all the hundreds of plugins I've forgotten I even have? It's not even just Pro Tools. There's Melodyne, HOFA and so forth, and all my non-music apps as well.

What experiences have others had with this?

[justinhill]

To answer my own question, I decided to clone the machine. I started off by putting the old machine in target disk mode and then booting the new machine off that. After checking that everything seemed happy I cloned the old machine onto the new one.

I'm a happy bunny. My big fat 96k sessions are running with Ozone all over them and the computer's not bothered at all. It actually seems a little better than the 5,1 12-core at the studio.

Now I'm waiting for Thomann to deliver my Presonus Quantum 4848.

[lancemcv]

I would clone your pro tools system drive to an externally thunderbolt or usb 3 drive and boot off of that and take it for a test spin with the new computer. Some plugins authorizations may not transfer via cloning though. That may be the one hitch that you may have to de authorize and re authorize on the new drive. This way your not wiping the working system on the new computer, then once all seems good you can clone to the Mac pros system drive, but I would also clone that original system that came with the Mac Pro so you can revert back if needed. Some will say doing a clean install is the only way to go, but I have been doing this method for years and have no major issues. Good luck with your new / old Mac Pro

[justinhill]

Thanks - yes that's essentially what I did. There was nothing on the (used) Mac Pro when it arrived so nothing to preserve. I ran for a while booted off the old computer in target disk mode then when all seemed well I cloned it over and everything seems fine.

Yes there are one or two plugins authorised to hard disk which I'll have to go through the teeth-pulling exercise of transferring but they're not urgent and it's generally been painless.

I must say that now I have finally got my hands on one I think the 6,1 Mac is a work of art. I know all the shortcomings about non-upgradeability and so forth but it's an insanely lovely piece of hardware and so well built. My first Pro Tools Mac was something called an 8500 as I recall. How things have changed.

Right now, I'm working like the wind doing rough mixes of a jazz album and marvelling at the lack of 9173 errors (or errors of any kind in fact.)

All I want now, apart from my new Quantum 4848, is Pro Tools 2019...