Migrating to a New iMac - Best way to do it?

[Noisemaker]

I'm getting my new iMac on Friday, and moving from my MacBook Pro to it.

What's the best way to do it? Is it better to use the migration assistant via ethernet, or would it be a good idea to start fresh, and just transfer my files manually?

I like the idea of a fresh start, but moving everything over is a bit more of a hassle than just clicking a few times in Migration Assistant.

Will Migration Assistant transfer all of my applications over - including Xcode 4?

Are there any negatives to using Migration Assistant?

I'd appreciate any tips or advice!

 

[islandman]

With Migration Assistant, you can pick and choose what you want to migrate. Yes, it can migrate all of your apps if you want. If you are going to migrate every single thing, you might as well use Super Duper or something similar.

Me, I am going to do it manually because I want to start fresh.

 

[AppleNewton]

Going from a MacBook Pro to an iMac, just let migration assistant do the work for you, sometimes when cloning from different machines/builds certain specific machine hardware/software or each machine may corrupt the transfer and cause alot of headaches. Migration assistant is usually pretty good at transferring over necessary files/data and leaving the backend OS clean.

 

[Noisemaker]

Going from a MacBook Pro to an iMac, just let migration assistant do the work for you, sometimes when cloning from different machines/builds certain specific machine hardware/software or each machine may corrupt the transfer and cause alot of headaches. Migration assistant is usually pretty good at transferring over necessary files/data and leaving the backend OS clean.

That's my main concern - leaving the OS nice and clean. I know it's not as much of a concern on a Mac, but a fresh install is undeniably snappier.

 

[novocaine]

That's my main concern - leaving the OS nice and clean. I know it's not as much of a concern on a Mac, but a fresh install is undeniably snappier.

A fresh install was very tempting for me too. But at the end I decided to just use the migration assistant to transfer about 300GB stuff from my macbook pro the new iMac last night. I'll wait till Lion comes out to do a fresh start. (i'll do fresh installation vs upgrade anyway)

 

[Noisemaker]

A fresh install was very tempting for me too. But at the end I decided to just use the migration assistant to transfer about 300GB stuff from my macbook pro the new iMac last night. I'll wait till Lion comes out to do a fresh start. (i'll do fresh installation vs upgrade anyway)

Eh. I'm not too interested in repeating the process in a few months.

Did you have any issue with using Migration Assistant? My MBP is a tad sluggish (but its hard drive is about 90% full, which I know may be the issue), so I just want to be sure that my new iMac will be running at its absolute best.

 

[novocaine]

Eh. I'm not too interested in repeating the process in a few months.

Did you have any issue with using Migration Assistant? My MBP is a tad sluggish (but its hard drive is about 90% full, which I know may be the issue), so I just want to be sure that my new iMac will be running at its absolute best.

I used a Time Machine backup. Didn't have much problems. There are several small apps I have to reinstall, but most of the apps work just fine. But speed-wise, I don't think it's at its best. I haven't upgraded the ram from 4GB yet so it could be from this as well.