Best path to migrate from Mini to Mac Studio, please help

[silverlakerCA]

I'm about to receive my new refurbished Mac Studio M1.
It's been a while since I've had a new Mac anything - and I've got my apps and other documents on the Mac Mini 1TB.

What's the smartest way to set up my Mac Studio - migrate or start from scratch with the apps and settings?

Thanks for your advice.

 

[Fishrrman]

When the new Studio comes, RESIST the idea to set it up immediately and boot it.

Instead, do this:

On the day it will arrive, do a "last backup" on the Mini.
I recommend either SuperDuper or CarbonCopyCloner for a cloned backup, but it you use time machine, it will do.

When the Studio arrives:
Take it out of the box, put it on the table, connect mouse, display.
BEFORE you push the power-on button, connect your "last backup".

NOW push the power on button for the first time.
The Studio will boot and you'll get to the initial setup screen.

Begin setup.
At the appropriate moment, setup assistant will ask if you wish to migrate from another drive or Mac. Yes, you do, so...

"Aim" setup assistant at the backup drive and give it sufficient time to "digest everything" (it will take a while).

When done, setup assistant will present you with a list of things that can be migrated.
I suggest you "accept the defaults" and migrate everything.

Turn s.a. loose and let it do the migration.
When done, you should see you old login screen, just as it appeared before on the MIni.

REASON WHY I suggest a "full migration":
The m1 Mini is "not that far behind" the new Studio.
I'll take a GUESS that most of the stuff you have now will be "still working and up-to-date". Perhaps not everything, but "most everything".

Good luck.

 

[kokko8]

When the new Studio comes, RESIST the idea to set it up immediately and boot it.

Instead, do this:

On the day it will arrive, do a "last backup" on the Mini.
I recommend either SuperDuper or CarbonCopyCloner for a cloned backup, but it you use time machine, it will do.

When the Studio arrives:
Take it out of the box, put it on the table, connect mouse, display.
BEFORE you push the power-on button, connect your "last backup".

NOW push the power on button for the first time.
The Studio will boot and you'll get to the initial setup screen.

Begin setup.
At the appropriate moment, setup assistant will ask if you wish to migrate from another drive or Mac. Yes, you do, so...

"Aim" setup assistant at the backup drive and give it sufficient time to "digest everything" (it will take a while).

When done, setup assistant will present you with a list of things that can be migrated.
I suggest you "accept the defaults" and migrate everything.

Turn s.a. loose and let it do the migration.
When done, you should see you old login screen, just as it appeared before on the MIni.

REASON WHY I suggest a "full migration":
The m1 Mini is "not that far behind" the new Studio.
I'll take a GUESS that most of the stuff you have now will be "still working and up-to-date". Perhaps not everything, but "most everything".

Good luck.

Why not use migration assistant directly connected to the "old" machine? Real question??

 

[silverlakerCA]

When the new Studio comes, RESIST the idea to set it up immediately and boot it.

Instead, do this:

On the day it will arrive, do a "last backup" on the Mini.
I recommend either SuperDuper or CarbonCopyCloner for a cloned backup, but it you use time machine, it will do.

When the Studio arrives:
Take it out of the box, put it on the table, connect mouse, display.
BEFORE you push the power-on button, connect your "last backup".

NOW push the power on button for the first time.
The Studio will boot and you'll get to the initial setup screen.

Begin setup.
At the appropriate moment, setup assistant will ask if you wish to migrate from another drive or Mac. Yes, you do, so...

"Aim" setup assistant at the backup drive and give it sufficient time to "digest everything" (it will take a while).

When done, setup assistant will present you with a list of things that can be migrated.
I suggest you "accept the defaults" and migrate everything.

Turn s.a. loose and let it do the migration.
When done, you should see you old login screen, just as it appeared before on the MIni.

REASON WHY I suggest a "full migration":
The m1 Mini is "not that far behind" the new Studio.
I'll take a GUESS that most of the stuff you have now will be "still working and up-to-date". Perhaps not everything, but "most everything".

Good luck.

I very much appreciate your detailed steps. I will look forward to spending today backing up my M1 Mini and then starting the process tomorrow when I'm supposed to pick up my refurb M1 Mac Studio. Thank you!

 

[haralds]

You can use Migration Assistant over the network. Just follow the Migration Assistant prompts. If you are on 1GB wired it is not much slower than using a spinner drive backup.

You can do this more quickly by setting up a temporary network directly connecting the two machines over Thunderbolt. You will have to assign a manual address on each machine, which means setting up a temporary account on the new machine. This works like a charm and is fast.

If you do have an extra drive that is large enough, it is nice to have backup. My preferred tool is Carbon Copy Cloner.

 

[MacDr3D]

I recently migrated from MB m1 to MBA15 over ethernet AND thunderbolt. Eventually Migration assistant will use the thunderbolt connection as it evaluates the connectiions between the two macs. And you do not have to manually assign ip adresses to the thunderbolt connection. Took about 2 hours for 170 GB . With just the Gigabit ethernet connection it would have taken an estimated 5 hours. Over wifi it would have taken more than a day 😀

 

[npn]

I just completed a migration from a 2015 MacBook Pro that had been migrated from a 2014 MacMini. I am sure I will have to re-install some apps, but so far ( 1 hour in things seem fine - just way faster)

 

[npn]

A follow up on my migration. The Migration assistant did pretty well. I had to re-install homebrew which was pretty painless when following these instructions. When I was done I removed the symbolic links in the old location and the old Cellar directory. I had a few other minor issues, like having to uninstall the x86 versions of ruby that were installed via rvm, an replace them with arm versions.

I do still have some old apps that want to launch with Rosetta. I will go thru them and look for native versions if available and also use this an opportunity to get rid of some old apps that I never use.