[Audio] Mac Pro 2009 to 2010 switching between for work

[Boneheadxan]

Hello all,

I mostly work with professional audio softwares. I currently have two studios setup. One is running a Mac Pro 2009 model with all my softwares/sessions/drivers installed. The newer studio has the Mac Pro 2010/11 which has just come in.

Since the two setups are in different locations, I was wondering if I could have the 2009 setup on a portable internal drive and use something like Carbon Copy Cloner to have a replica? Or carry the main internal HD from the 2009 MP.

Will this work? Will the software licenses work without re-installing or re-authorising? I previously recovered a MBP from a Time Machine backup and all my licenses broke and I had to re-authorise.

I'm trying to escape the pain of re-installing hundreds of softwares. This is just for my work, so won't be running both systems simultaneously.

Any help is appreciated, thanks.

 

[ElderBrE]

Depends on the licenses, but if it's just to avoid the pain of re-installing, you can just do this process once, taking your hard drive and duplicating it on the new machine. Depending on the licenses, you might have to re-enter them, but then that would be it.

 

[derbothaus]

Will this work? Will the software licenses work without re-installing or re-authorising? I previously recovered a MBP from a Time Machine backup and all my licenses broke and I had to re-authorise.

I'm trying to escape the pain of re-installing hundreds of softwares. This is just for my work, so won't be running both systems simultaneously.

Any help is appreciated, thanks.

Bare metal image from HDD to HDD is the best you can do really. Or restore from .dmg image. I'm pretty sure I have not needed to re-auth my stuff this way. It is the SW that uses archaic methods of authentication. Audio is some of the worst for that especially with smaller companies plug-ins. Very rare that imaging works without this as they have little "self destruct" files that vanish or are tied to HW (Apple does not do this) The Pro-Tools types do. So you don't steal their plug! Anyway best bet is image from .dmg clone or pop in an HDD, boot to external OS and do a restore from one HDD to the next.

 

[Boneheadxan]

Thanks guys. I'm going to give it a shot and see how it goes.