Best way to transfer User Account from old Mac Pro to newer Mac Pro

[Hgben]

Hi,
I have upgraded to a refurbished Mac Pro 5.1 running Big Sur. i have an older 3.1 running El Capitan and want to transfer my User Account to the newer Mac. My 3.1 has osx on an ssd and my data (including Home Folder) on 1tb sata drive in a second storage bay which i plan to remove and slide into storage bay on the 5.1 eventually.
Is it worth using Migration Assistant to transfer my User Account or will the difference in osx and the two drive configuration be too messy?
Any assistance appreciated.

 

[MightyGem]

Migration Assistant is the best, and easiest, way. The differences between the two Macs won't matter.

 

[Raydad]

Please be careful if you are purchasing a new macair or macbook pro. Apple is selling only ones with their M1 chip- they say it runs faster is better for the machine BUT if you are transferring software and data from an old machine , migration assistant is wonderful but Apple is too cheap to have a website listing software compatibility. I had some expensive outside software on my older MacAir but after the transfer ,the outside programs FAILED to work. Had Apple put a few of their trillions of dollars into a website listed major software, that wasn't owned or sold by Apple, those programs are nonfunctional. When you call the outside company, they say, it will take a while before they can make their software compatible and functional with the M1 chip. Some placesa are selling the new MacBook's with a choice of M1 or Intel - if you want to be safe and had I known, I would have bought the Intel Chip machine. A sacrifice of some speed to have all your programs and their data is more importat to me

 

[MightyGem]

Go 64 will list all your Apps as 32 or 64 bit compatible.

Go64

 

[Michael the T]

Some placesa are selling the new MacBook's with a choice of M1 or Intel - if you want to be safe and had I known, I would have bought the Intel Chip machine. A sacrifice of some speed to have all your programs and their data is more importat to me

Not quite right. It doesn't matter whether you buy an Intel or M1 chip, it is the OS you are running that will trip you up. Any Mac using an OS after (I believe it is) Mojave will kill any applications you have that run on 32 bit. Up through Mojave there was a transition program that let people run 32 bit software on modern Mac computers. They did away with that transition program after Mojave. Any program you have that is still 32 bit will simply not run on any newer OS. They MUST be 64 bit programs.

Aside: Right now the M1 chip has a transition program that will allow Intel programs to still run on the M1. Some time down the road Apple will drop that program as well and any Intel software you have on your M1 Mac will cease to work.

 

[MacFile]

Please be careful if you are purchasing a new macair or macbook pro. Apple is selling only ones with their M1 chip- they say it runs faster is better for the machine BUT if you are transferring software and data from an old machine , migration assistant is wonderful but Apple is too cheap to have a website listing software compatibility. I had some expensive outside software on my older MacAir but after the transfer ,the outside programs FAILED to work. Had Apple put a few of their trillions of dollars into a website listed major software, that wasn't owned or sold by Apple, those programs are nonfunctional. When you call the outside company, they say, it will take a while before they can make their software compatible and functional with the M1 chip. Some placesa are selling the new MacBook's with a choice of M1 or Intel - if you want to be safe and had I known, I would have bought the Intel Chip machine. A sacrifice of some speed to have all your programs and their data is more importat to me

The same thing happened to me.