File transfer from 5.1 Mac Pro to MBP M1 - best way for a lot of data?

[PeterMeier3435]

Hi,

I'm currently transferring my system from a Mac Pro to an M1 16 MBP (8TB disk). I have a loooot of stuff (6+TB) on different SSD and HDDs on the Mac Pro and I'm not using any external drives. What's the best way to access the Mac Pro drives from the M1 so I can pull, categorize and organize everything whilst also decluttering?

I don't have Airdrop on the 5.1. and no FireWire connection on the M1 for TargetDiskMode (would that work with an adapter/dock?).

Dropbox / online sync is too messy.

Any ideas? Thanks!

 

[lcubed]

buy an external drive dock like this one from macsales

OWC Drive Dock U.2 / SATA

Read, write, hot swap, and boot 2.5 and 3.5-inch HDDs and SSDs. Includes USB-C and USB-A cables for Plug & Play use with millions of computers and tablets.

eshop.macsales.com

newer tech makes a similar one.

pop the side of the 5,1 and extract the drives.
remove the drives from the sleds using a philips and drop them into the drive dock.

using the apple migration tool worked like a charm at this point when
we upgraded our large image library from a macpro5,1 to an m1 mini
with an attached 16 TB raid.

 

[satcomer]

buy an external drive dock like this one from macsales

OWC Drive Dock U.2 / SATA

Read, write, hot swap, and boot 2.5 and 3.5-inch HDDs and SSDs. Includes USB-C and USB-A cables for Plug & Play use with millions of computers and tablets.

eshop.macsales.com

newer tech makes a similar one.

pop the side of the 5,1 and extract the drives.
remove the drives from the sleds using a philips and drop them into the drive dock.

using the apple migration tool worked like a charm at this point when
we upgraded our large image library from a macpro5,1 to an m1 mini
with an attached 16 TB raid.

Just don’t transfer network settings! Stick to email boxes, accounts, picture, music or videos plus saved documents!

 

[Fravin]

There is a solution using two dongles from Apple.

Firewire 800 - Thunderbolt 2 link

Thunderbolt 2 - Thunderbolt 3 link

You can hook the two computers using it.

 

[Bodhitree]

I noticed the other day while hooking up my MacBook Air 2011 running High Sierra to my new iMac running Monterey using a standard Ethernet cable that it just mounted the MBA as a device in the Finder of the iMac and i could simply access the disk from there. Very handy.

Thunderbolt should be quite a bit quicker though.

 

[Fravin]

I noticed the other day while hooking up my MacBook Air 2011 running High Sierra to my new iMac running Monterey using a standard Ethernet cable that it just mounted the MBA as a device in the Finder of the iMac and i could simply access the disk from there. Very handy.

Never heard that. Thank you for sharing!

 

[lcubed]

There is a solution using two dongles from Apple.

Firewire 800 - Thunderbolt 2 link

Thunderbolt 2 - Thunderbolt 3 link

You can hook the two computers using it.

using the drive dock achieved much higher transfer rates than the firewire 800 route since FW800 is the bottleneck

 

[wonderings]

Not sure why you would want to use FireWire for transferring 6TB's of information when modern connections are so much faster. USB 3 at very least is twice as fast I believe.

 

[Fravin]

Not sure why you would want to use FireWire for transferring 6TB's of information when modern connections are so much faster. USB 3 at very least is twice as fast I believe.

I think it's OP decision to mess with disassembling or not... As he asked for adaptors, I think he is looking for something easy.

 

[lcubed]

this chart from macworld might help
there's probably some additional overhead when hooked up
via sata internal bus==> fw800 ==> TB:

 

[MrAverigeUser]

Reorganizing your data will need the most time… so…

I think the best way is to invest a little bit and get and quickly install a PCI SATA III Card into the MacPro, bus and put a 1 or 2 TB sata SSD in and organize your files in the MacPro… and get the transfer from your SSD already in the MacPro rapidly on the new SSD, which means transfer speed on SATA III Level.

then transfer the already reorganized data from the new SSD using a SATA III dock with 10 Gbit/s to the 16“ MBP (not necessary to stay beside). Then again for the next 1-2 TB…

As for the transfer from the HDD you can save a lot of time to do this reorganization of data as well using the SSD, but inevitably the bottleneck will be the performance of the HDD.

IMHO this will save the most of your time that you are forced to do something yourself or stay beside the machines…

just my 2 cts

 

[PeterMeier3435]

Hey everybody - thanks for the replies!

Connections on the Mac Pro are limited (I don't even have a USB 3 card, just USB 2, cause I never upgraded anything)

Yeah ideally I would just access the files in place without disassembling / taking out drives so I can pick and choose what to copy and what to trash. I alredy set up everything on the M1 and it's in a workable state - I use it for music production and went through the pain and set everything up / installed tons of plug-ins etc., so migration assistant is out.

I'll try via ethernet and USB 3.

Do I just start the Mac Pro to TargetDiskMode? I only ever used TDM via FireWire (years ago), just read you can use it with USB now...

 

[MrAverigeUser]

Hey everybody - thanks for the replies!

Connections on the Mac Pro are limited (I don't even have a USB 3, just USB 2, cause I never

Yeah ideally I would just access the files in place without disassembling / taking out drives so I can pick and choose what to copy and what to trash. I alredy set up everything on the M1 and it's in a workable state - I use it for music production and went through the pain and set everything up / installed tons of plug-ins etc., so migration assistant is out.

I'll try via ethernet and USB 3.

Do I just start the Mac Pro to TargetDiskMode? I only ever used TDM via FireWire (years ago), just read you can use it with USB now...

the Inatec USB 3 PCI card did cost me about 12 € and installation was done in 5 min. Runs flawlessly.
It is really that easy.
Resulting in at least 100% faster speed than FireWire… IIRC there are cheap USB-C PCI cards for the maxPro which gives you even 300% speed compared to FW speed….