How long does auto setup take on a new Mac usually...?

[Turnpike]

A friend got a new/refurbished iMac Pro, and followed the automatic "transfer your stuff from your old computer" steps before I knew that the new computer arrived.

It's being transferred from a 2011 iMac with a Hybrid HD, over wifi, and the old computer had about 500GB of data on it... it's been going all night, and just to be sure nothing is hung up, how long could we expect the transfer to take...? There's no progress meter on the "your data is transferring" page.

Thanks in advance!

 

[Ruggy]

It's going to take a very long time if you are doing it over wifi.
If you are uploading and then downloading over wifi you will be limited by the upload speed of your provider and that will be way way slower than your download speed- you may well be limited to 3mbs upload speed.
But let's say it's 25mbs- that's bits and there are 8 bits to a byte so about 3Mbytes per second or about 10Gbytes an hour and if you have 500G bytes that's about 500 hours.
But it's likely a lot slower than that.
I would back it up to SSD/ SD cards something like that and transfer it across that way myself.

 

[dominicperry]

Best way to transfer files is using Target Disk mode on the older machine. Connect a Thunderbolt cable between the two machines. There's no concern about one being TB1 and the other TB3, you'll just need adapters.

I personally would not copy any applications - only documents and data. I don't find that copied applications work well unless the source and target are using the same OS.

Dominic

 

[Turnpike]

It's going to take a very long time if you are doing it over wifi.
If you are uploading and then downloading over wifi you will be limited by the upload speed of your provider and that will be way way slower than your download speed- you may well be limited to 3mbs upload speed.
But let's say it's 25mbs- that's bits and there are 8 bits to a byte so about 3Mbytes per second or about 10Gbytes an hour and if you have 500G bytes that's about 500 hours.
But it's likely a lot slower than that.
I would back it up to SSD/ SD cards something like that and transfer it across that way myself.

At this point, is it safe to interrupt the transfer and do it another way, or am I better off just letting it continue to run?

It's cable internet by the way, so the speeds are at least reasonable.

 

[dominicperry]

The speed of the internet isn't really relevant, it's the speed of the WiFi, which is limited by the router and the two machines - whichever is the lowest common denominator, probably the 2011 Mac.

If you interrupt the transfer you will have to start again. It will probably be faster to do exactly that, but be aware that you will have a pile of transferred stuff which will then get doubled up.

 

[afterhours]

At this point, is it safe to interrupt the transfer and do it another way, or am I better off just letting it continue to run?

It's cable internet by the way, so the speeds are at least reasonable.

Yep. Heck, it'd be faster to attach an external USB drive to the old mac, allow TimeMachine to completely copy the old machine, then use the TimeMachine drive to populate the new Mac from the setup.

 

[dominicperry]

Targer Disk Mode explanation.

Transfer files between two Mac computers using target disk mode

You can connect two Mac computers using a USB, USB-C or Thunderbolt cable, then transfer files.

support.apple.com

 

[afterhours]

The speed of the internet isn't really relevant, it's the speed of the WiFi, which is limited by the router and the two machines - whichever is the lowest common denominator, probably the 2011 Mac.

If you interrupt the transfer you will have to start again. It will probably be faster to do exactly that, but be aware that you will have a pile of transferred stuff which will then get doubled up.

Not if he restores the new Mac to factory... That would be a wiser path to avoid the doubled files.

 

[afterhours]

Your friend IS making backups with TimeMachine, right? If not, then maybe this data really isn't very important.

 

[ILoveCalvinCool]

Since the target machine is new, I'd wipe it and start over with a hardwired connection between the two machines. Ethernet, USB, etc. Wifi is going to take forever and as other users have noted, the speed of your cable connection makes no difference when it comes to wifi.

 

[Turnpike]

So what would be the best cable to connect an iMac from 2011 and an iMac Pro together with?

 

[afterhours]

So what would be the best cable to connect an iMac from 2011 and an iMac Pro together with?

Thunderbolt should give you the best results there. I'll pester you again: are they using TimeMachine for backups? Would be an ideal time to learn how.

 

[wilberforce]

Do both have ethernet ports? If so, connect them directly to each other with a regular ethernet cable, and it will auto-detect the ethernet connection and use that instead, you do not even need to interrupt or restart the transfer.
It is exactly what I did.

 

[colodane]

If using Ethernet, make sure you use at least a CAT 6 cable.

 

[wilberforce]

If using Ethernet, make sure you use at least a CAT 6 cable.

CAT 5e would be OK too.
It is probably hard to even buy a CAT 5 cable, being over 20 years old. But yes, a CAT 5 cable would be no faster than wifi.