Migrating from 1TB MacBook Pro to M1 with 256GB

[valiant66]

I’m going to be retiring my 2012 MacBook Pro with an upgraded 1TB SSD to a Mac Mini with 256 GB.

The MacBook Pro is quite full, so I can’t transfer all my user files to the Mini, I’ll have to use an external drive as well.

What is the best way to migrate? I want to keep all my registered software, and all my user files. They obviously won’t fit onto a drive that’s only ¼ the size, so how do I approach this?

Thanks.

 

[Nukeban]

What if you ignored the internal 256GB drive, and used an external 2TB or larger drive as your main boot drive. You could copy your current setup to the external drive using SuperDuper, and then boot from there. Your entire setup would be duplicated exactly as it is now, and you'd have additional room to grow in to. Nothing much to learn or do.

I just did this yesterday. It took about 4 hours to copy about 700GB of data via Firewire. I'm on a 2011 iMac.

Here's what I'm going to do next, using the advice of another member here. I'll setup a 2nd external drive for weekly SuperDuper bootable backups. A third external drive will receive daily TimeMachine backups.

If my Mac blows up, or I get a new one, I'll just plug the next Mac in to the three drive collection above, and keep on working.

The only thing I haven't got covered yet is off site backup, so hopefully my house won't burn down before I figure out how to do that.

 

[valiant66]

That is a workable solution, but not optimal for me. One of the advantages to the M1 Macs is that CPU, GPU, RAM and HD are all integrated into one piece of silicone, leading to the super fast performance it is now known for. Booting from an external drive would slow everything down because the USB3 interface would become the bottleneck. You would no longer experience the blazing performance paid for. So I would want my OS, apps, caches, etc. on the internal storage, and my working files etc. on an external. That way Photoshop etc. would cache working files internally, but open and save files externally.

What I’m wondering is if it’s possible to set up Migration Assistant for that? I have Carbon Copy Cloner, which is like Super Duper, but both of them are designed to back up entire volumes, not migrate users. I will certainly be using CCC as part of my backup strategy afterwards.

 

[Nukeban]

Ok, you make good points. I know very little about the M1 Macs.

For myself, only one opinion, I don't see the point of such speed for the vast majority of users. I would agree there are instances where speed would matter, say, if a person works as a video editor or 3D game developer, and time is money.

All I can add is that I'm running everything (including video editing) off an external drive via ancient Firewire and a 10 year old Mac, and that seems acceptable to me. But, to each their own of course.

 

[valiant66]

OK. Thanks.