Longtime PC user - new iMac arrives Friday & I have some questions

[jabromusic]

Well, the time has come to say goodbye to my Windows PC and hello to my new iMac. I was looking for a few practical tips from other users who have made the switch. I was planning on immediately connecting my old PC to my iMac and using Migration Assistant to move some of my data.

My main question is this: I have a 2TB NTFS external hard drive with all of my music files, videos, documents and pictures that I would like to move to a new 6TB Glyph external drive after I get my iMac set up. Is it as simple as connecting both drives to my iMac and just dragging each one of those folders (music, pictures, videos, etc...) to the new drive? My music (iTunes) folder is 960GB so I'm guessing that it will take about 10 hours just to copy that folder alone!

Thanks and any other tips to make this process go smoother would be greatly appreciated. I'm looking forward to joining the Mac community this Friday!

 

[Kaikidan]

MacOS can READ files from a NTFS drive, so just copying it from the NTFS drive to a HFS+ drive will be super easy. for writing you will need specific software like paragon.

About tips in general, there are some nice youtube videos with tips for new mac users, as things change a bit between the two OSes, one of the most usefull is getting familiarized with the mac specific shortcuts, like command+space to open spotlight (You will use this A LOT, most useful feature of macos) or how to close/minimize/maximize windows (green button enters full screen, to maximize an app hold option/OPT before clicking green) and on that note, option is generally used to open extra... options on aplications, like when right clicking a file, by default it shows copy, if you hold option it will change to move, so if you get stuck somehwere trying to find a specific option on a menu, give opt a go, most often than not it's there. Also, on that note, if you hold option while opening photos and i believe music too, it will allow you to set the library folder location.

Another nice thing to keep in mind is that if you use snap on windows to auto adjust window positions and sizes, it's not by default on mac, but you can download rectangle for free which brings snap function plus a lot other more useful window snaping features.

 

[BeatCrazy]

Welcome to the club!

 

[cthompson94]

Welcome! It may take some time getting used to, but Kaikidan seems to have answered your question!

 

[Basic75]

My tip, don't install any "optimisers" or other system tweaking tools that promise faster performance and stuff unless you fully understand what the tool does and that you will specifically benefit from its use. In most cases the operating system and its built-in cleanups will take care of everything and keep your computer running smoothly.

 

[Bodhitree]

Welcome! I think you’ll enjoy your new machine.

 

[Kaikidan]

Another thing that I think is useful but don't know if it's common practice, is that I like to leave mine on 24/7, since it allows for the system to perforn updates and do maintenance tasks at night when not in use, only rebooting it once a week or so to take care of memory leaks on some bad optimized apps, but if you don't like leaving the mac turned on forever, when it has an important update to install it will prompt you to allow it to install the update overnight, so you leave it turned on that specific day just for the updates, thats something I really like about the mac, no "windows is installing updates, please wait" in the middle of the day when you most need the computer. Macs do it overnight.

 

[Fishrrman]

OP:
"I have a 2TB NTFS external hard drive with all of my music files, videos, documents and pictures that I would like to move to a new 6TB Glyph external drive after I get my iMac set up."

If you intend to use the new 6tb drive with the Mac ONLY, then you should format it to "a Mac format".

Will this (the 6tb) be a platter-based hard drive?
If so, then the format I would recommend is:
HFS+ (in disk utility, it's called "Mac OS extended with journaling enabled, GUID partition format").

The formatting scheme that Apple uses for its SSD-based boot drives is "APFS with GUID partition format".
HOWEVER ... APFS doesn't do as well with platter-based HDD's, can result in excessive fragmentation and sometimes "disk thrashing".

 

[pmiles]

Best advice... don't micro-manage the device. You don't need to defrag the disks, you don't need to have an anti-virus application, you don't need any cleaner applications of any sort, avoid chrome like the plague, don't partition the internal drive, leave spotlight off, use a surge suppressor, and skip time-machine.

Use Windows Migration Assistant to transfer your iTunes files to the Mac, don't just copy the folder from your NTFS drive to a Mac formatted drive. The data is formatted differently for use on a PC versus a Mac.

Not a fan of leaving a computer on 24/7 when it isn't actually in use by the user (i.e. rendering files or running a backup). Generates unnecessary heat, consumes power, adds to the overall hours in use on the device, and exposes the device to potential damage while left unattended.

Sure some will disagree with some of what is herein. Just want to be clear that Macs don't require tinkering under the hood to keep them running like Windows computers do. You're not going to be faced with a wall of "critical updates" on your Mac. They sky is not falling every moment you boot your Mac. It actually does just fine, right out of the box with no intervention on your part whatsoever.

 

[MarineBand5524]

Best advice... don't micro-manage the device. You don't need to defrag the disks, you don't need to have an anti-virus application, you don't need any cleaner applications of any sort, avoid chrome like the plague, don't partition the internal drive, leave spotlight off, use a surge suppressor, and skip time-machine.

Use Windows Migration Assistant to transfer your iTunes files to the Mac, don't just copy the folder from your NTFS drive to a Mac formatted drive. The data is formatted differently for use on a PC versus a Mac.

Not a fan of leaving a computer on 24/7 when it isn't actually in use by the user (i.e. rendering files or running a backup). Generates unnecessary heat, consumes power, adds to the overall hours in use on the device, and exposes the device to potential damage while left unattended.

Sure some will disagree with some of what is herein. Just want to be clear that Macs don't require tinkering under the hood to keep them running like Windows computers do. You're not going to be faced with a wall of "critical updates" on your Mac. They sky is not falling every moment you boot your Mac. It actually does just fine, right out of the box with no intervention on your part whatsoever.

When I switched back in 2007 with the then newly redesigned 24" iMac (actually scrounged $$ to save for it) I had just built this mammoth desktop with a $550 ATI video card and then Vista came out. I was done with blue screens, crashing, especially how they had zero tech support.

Came home, pulled it out of the box, set it up in like 2 seconds, was online and it was already updated. The first thing I said to myself actually out loud was, why did I take this long to switch.

it was so easy and I didn't even miss windows or its operating system.