Advice for moving from old mini to new mini.

[jonnyhart]

Hi, here's my situation: my old mini is a core 2 duo (the older, chunky one) running lion. I have now got my new i7 2.7 mini and have successfully installed an ssd, downloaded lion through internet recovery and am ready to go.

What's the best way to effectively have everything from my old mini on the new one? I've read conflicting reports about using a time machine backup (should/shouldn't be done between different computers) and also heard people have had trouble with super duper, but now it's lion compatible. Has anyone actually used the newer version?

Time is not so much of an issue, am I best off connecting the two with an Ethernet cable and using migration assistant? This is what I would've done, but I'm confused by people who have said it doesn't copy everything over.

Anyone actually done this themselves?

Thanks

 

[SidBoggle]

I have just done this myself. Going from an old 2009 2.0 Core 2 Duo (running SL 10.6.8) to a new 2.4 i5 model (with Lion of course).

I did a time machine backup of the old machine and then used migration assistant to move everything to the new system. Worked faultlessly and was up and running within an hour.

 

[tbayrgs]

I also upgraded, from a 2007 Macbook to a 2011 Mini Server and used Migration assistant with no issues at all. Everything appears to have been copied although I did have to add my printer/scanner as it was missing from my Print and Scan hardware.

I had also read multiple sources advising against restoring form an Time Machine backup from a different machine, thus went this route.

 

[jonnyhart]

Thanks for the advice. I used migration assistant from the tm backup and everything is good- I had to reconfigure dropbox and had one or two problems with my Bluetooth keyboard and trackpad, but everything is good now.

 

[porkchopwes1]

all i can say is that its worth it

 

[Mr.C]

Thanks for the advice. I used migration assistant from the tm backup and everything is good- I had to reconfigure dropbox and had one or two problems with my Bluetooth keyboard and trackpad, but everything is good now.

What problems did you have with your keyboard and trackpad ? How did you fix them ?

 

[jonnyhart]

What problems did you have with your keyboard and trackpad ? How did you fix them ?

Had a hard time pairing them- osx was asking me to enter a passcode into my trackpad... After doing various things, in the end taking the batteries out of everything, shutting down (not just a restart), wiping all traces of the devices (they still appeared in the bluetooth devices menu- so I deleted them) and setting them up like new.

It really is lightning fast now and everything runs so smooth. I have had no experience of doing anything like this before, but if you can follow instructions it's actually quite easy to change the hard drive- the most nerve wracking part was removing the first connection to the logic board (the fan) as the ifixit instructions don't go into much detail and I was afraid of using too much force. OWC have a video for the 2010 mini that was perhaps more useful to see how these little bits come off.