Old Mac to new Mac

[lowthert]

Hello all - just a question please. I am getting a new Mac and want to make the switch as painless as possible. Is there a piece of software that will help me clone my current Mac - individual System and Sample drives (my audio drive is separate) - and allow me to transfer to a new Mac and still have all of the paths running correctly in ProTools?

I really don't want the schlep of having to download all of my instruments and their associated samples again!! I don't think I have that many years left in me!!

There must be an easier way?

Thanks!

Tony

[cwsand]

Hi, Well there's the Mac Migration Assistant built in that I've actually had success with, but a lot of people have had nightmare experiences with it. There are probably other 3rd party apps that may be more reliable.

[lowthert]

Thanks Chris - I get that the Migration tool will clone my system drive and apps - but will it also copy the samples across to a new drive? And can that new drive be an external TB SSD destination rather than the existing internal spinner?

[musicman691]

Originally Posted by cwsand

Hi, Well there's the Mac Migration Assistant built in that I've actually had success with, but a lot of people have had nightmare experiences with it. There are probably other 3rd party apps that may be more reliable.

Originally Posted by lowthert

Thanks Chris - I get that the Migration tool will clone my system drive and apps - but will it also copy the samples across to a new drive? And can that new drive be an external TB SSD destination rather than the existing internal spinner?

NEVER use Migration Assassin for anything other than data.

As far as backups/clones what you should be looking at is Carbon Copy Cloner. It's a pay-for but worth the money. You can set separate tasks for each thing you want to do like cloning your system drive to another drive, your samples to another drives, sessions to yet another drive, etc. That's what I do on my setup but on a weekly basis for safety's sake in case of problems/crashes and believe me it's helped me a number of times.

Because you clone from one existing drive you can clone back to any drive you want - you just have to tell CCC where to clone to. And when you do a clone you don't have to clone everything or reclone everything - again you just tell CCC what you want cloned. I've even used it to clone back single programs or folders.

One of the nice things with CCC is if you clone your system drive that clone can be bootable. CCC will also create a rescue partition if you want.

Like I said - having a clone isn't just for moving data/programs back and forth. It's inexpensive insurance for when things go (not if) wrong. Hard drives are cheap. It's not as cheap as ZDT on your iLok but still worth it.

[Southsidemusic]

There are a lot of usage of the word "clone" here MusicMan

... sounds really funny 13 times

[lowthert]

Thanks Jack - exactly what I needed!

[musicman691]

Originally Posted by Southsidemusic

There are a lot of usage of the word "clone" here MusicMan

... sounds really funny 13 times

At least there's not a clone of me