New computer time-what to expect drive wise?

[mjm333]

I'm purchasing a new "trashcan" Mac soon. My old 2009 "cheese grater" Mac has been ok, but due to its age I'm stuck on OS 10.9.5, and that's preventing me from upgrading my most used software- ProTools, Kontakt, etc. Time for a new computer and more power.

My question is, what should I expect when taking my internal SSD's out of my cheese grater and connecting the drives to the new Mac trashcan (I'll use an OWC Thunderbay 4)? I'll also be taking my HD Native card out of the cheese grater and put it in a new external OWC PCIe housing as well.

I recall when I upgraded to SSDs from spinning drives I had a number of issues with software not finding the correct path for samples and even a licensing issue or two when I upgraded the processor in the cheese grater (some software saw a new computer with the processor upgrade).

Of course I have 2 separate external back ups of all the drives in my system. I use Super Duper for backups. I know I'll need to transfer my system drive info to the new computer via USB I guess? The old cheese grater doesn't have WIFI capabilities. I'm just wondering what else I may experience when I pull the trigger on the new Mac purchase?

Specs of current cheese grater Mac:

2009 2 x 3.32 Quad Core Intel Xeon
OS 10.9.5
64 GB RAM

4 internal Samsung Pro 850 1TB SSDs (one system and 3 for samples)
1 internal OWC PCIe SSD 1TB (for samples and PT projects location)

Pro Tools HD Native card running version 12.7.1 of the software connected to 3 HD I/Os


Thanks!

[musicman691]

Why are you talking about using USB to transfer data over (assuming you're putting the existing ssd's in that Thunderbay box)? Why not just do it over the Thunderbolt connection to the iTrashcan?

I don't use Super Duper but Carbon Copy Cloner for all my work. I regularly make backups of everything on my system (system drive, samples drive, session drive). CCC makes bootable clones. I've even used the system drive clone to do a clean install of OSX to a system drive. In my case I'd purchased a refurbed 5,1 cheesegrater that came with Sierra and I wanted to use Yosemite. After a couple of aborted attempts at doing things the Apple way I booted from the clone of my now deceased iMac which ran OSX 10.10.5 and used that to wipe the ssd system drive in the 5,1 and did a clean install of OSX 10.10.5. I did not use OSX Migration Assassin to bring stuff over but rather used CCC to bring stuff over. Everything pretty much ran okay but I did have to do re-installs of PT 11.3.2 and Digital Performer 9.02 because of weirdness.

Do realize that the new machine will probably come with High Sierra and if you're backdating to an older OSX I don't know for sure how far back you can go but you could probably go back to Yosemite. You don't say what PT version you're putting on the new machine nor what OSX you want to run.

[mjm333]

Yep, transferring data using the Thunderbay dock would be the way to go. haha I brain farted on that one. Thanks!

I'll be moving up to the current versions of PT and OS- like you said, the trashcan will come with High Sierra. As long as my audio software (ProTools) is approved for High Sierra, I'm fine with it.

Super Duper does the same thing as CCC, and I use it the same way you do. I have backup bootable drives of my system drive and exact clones of all the other drives in my system. Works like a charm. I guess that's how I'll get my current system drive data over to the new trashcan- popping the old drive into the dock and booting from it. Then making the new system drive in the trashcan a bootable copy and going from there.

Thanks for the reply!

[musicman691]

Originally Posted by mjm333

Yep, transferring data using the Thunderbay dock would be the way to go. haha I brain farted on that one. Thanks!

I'll be moving up to the current versions of PT and OS- like you said, the trashcan will come with High Sierra. As long as my audio software (ProTools) is approved for High Sierra, I'm fine with it.

Super Duper does the same thing as CCC, and I use it the same way you do. I have backup bootable drives of my system drive and exact clones of all the other drives in my system. Works like a charm. I guess that's how I'll get my current system drive data over to the new trashcan- popping the old drive into the dock and booting from it. Then making the new system drive in the trashcan a bootable copy and going from there.

Thanks for the reply!

System drive that comes in the trashcan should already be a bootable drive. Unless you're changing it out for some reason. Now whether the stuff on your current drive will run in High Sierra is another matter and you may end up installing a whole bunch of stuff just to get everything to work right. Keep in mind that HS uses APFS file format on ssd's.

[mjm333]

I know the new system drive will be bootable, but to copy everything from my old system drive to the new one, I may need to boot up off the old one and use Super Duper to copy.

And yes, even though my current system drive is an SSD already, I'm not entirely sure everything will copy over and run the same on the new system drive. Not sure what APFS file format is, or how it will impact me. It'll be a wait and see thing I guess. I'll have to fire up a session and suss out which samples and/or software still works, and which need to be pointed to a new path or updated. I don't see any problems with my audio software running on High Sierra from a compatibility standpoint, but I've found you never know for sure until you try.

Thanks again!

[musicman691]

Originally Posted by mjm333

I know the new system drive will be bootable, but to copy everything from my old system drive to the new one, I may need to boot up off the old one and use Super Duper to copy.

And yes, even though my current system drive is an SSD already, I'm not entirely sure everything will copy over and run the same on the new system drive. Not sure what APFS file format is, or how it will impact me. It'll be a wait and see thing I guess. I'll have to fire up a session and suss out which samples and/or software still works, and which need to be pointed to a new path or updated. I don't see any problems with my audio software running on High Sierra from a compatibility standpoint, but I've found you never know for sure until you try.

Thanks again!

It's not so much a matter of over what will copy and won't but what will run. Copying over old stuff off your existing system drive could have things on your new system that weren't meant to be run on/compatible with High Sierra. It's how a lot of people get PT10 running on Yosemite or later - they either do an in-situ OSX upgrade or bring over from a backup/clone and then they wonder why they have problems.

I'd say put Super Duper on the new drive and let it have at it. You're going to need it on there anyways.

[mjm333]

Right, gotcha.

I definitely will install Super Duper on my new system drive, but I'm not sure I can then use it on the new system drive and tell it to look at my old system drive and copy everything over. It would work the other way- boot up using old system drive and tell it to make new system drive identical. But then I may be killing newer files on the new system drive.

Not sure exactly how I'll accomplish getting old files off my current system drive. When I did this before, my computer remained the same and the system drive just went from spinning drive to SSD. I simply booted up off the old one and cloned the new one to be identical to the old. No problems at all. Maybe I'm overthinking this and a simple clone from old to new drive will work.

I appreciate your input on this. Gets me thinking of all possibilities.

[musicman691]

Originally Posted by mjm333

Right, gotcha.

I definitely will install Super Duper on my new system drive, but I'm not sure I can then use it on the new system drive and tell it to look at my old system drive and copy everything over. It would work the other way- boot up using old system drive and tell it to make new system drive identical. But then I may be killing newer files on the new system drive.

Not sure exactly how I'll accomplish getting old files off my current system drive. When I did this before, my computer remained the same and the system drive just went from spinning drive to SSD. I simply booted up off the old one and cloned the new one to be identical to the old. No problems at all. Maybe I'm overthinking this and a simple clone from old to new drive will work.

I appreciate your input on this. Gets me thinking of all possibilities.

If Super Duper is like Carbon Copy Cloner you can tell it to 'clone back to' any drive you want. All it does in this case is moving data and doesn't care to where it moving to - it need not be known to the program beforehand. So getting files off the old drive is easy - you just tel the program where you want the files to go to.

But as I keep saying doing this with programs may get you something that won't work right and you'll end up installing from fresh anyways. Not all programs you have will be compatible with High Sierra unless you are VERY lucky

[mjm333]

Understood. Continued thanks.

[lae777]

Originally Posted by mjm333

I'm purchasing a new "trashcan" Mac soon. My old 2009 "cheese grater" Mac has been ok, but due to its age I'm stuck on OS 10.9.5, and that's preventing me from upgrading my most used software- ProTools, Kontakt, etc. Time for a new computer and more power.

At the risk of being off topic, I have a similar model "cheese grater" to you (2009) and I upgraded the EFI firmware so that my old 4,1 Mac Pro is now seen as a Mac Pro 5,1 and I am running High Sierra (10.13.2) and PT HD 2018.1 with no problems.

Instructions here;
https://forums.macrumors.com/threads...1-efi.1894850/

Perhaps this would be an option for you too?

It is a simple fix which allows me to use the newest Mac OS and newer software (including Kontakt) than what was possible with my "old" 4,1 machine.

It's also much cheaper and there's no need for expansion chassis' etc.

Anyway, just an option.

Take care.