MP 7,1 Migration Assistant - Upgrading from 5,1 (Sierra) to 7,1 (Sequoia)

[Valdaquendë]

I am preparing to transition from my beloved cMP 5,1 (Sierra) to a 2019 MP 7,1 (Sequoia), as I need the 7,1's AVX2 instruction set for Adobe and a couple of other apps. I have the two systems connected to my LAN and intend to use the Migration Assistant but given the long stretch between MacOS versions, and concomitant versions of such apps as Mail, etc., I wanted to find out if others had encountered any problems with such a transition and, if so, what they were, before taking that plunge.

Thanks in advance for any advice and for the time and energy you spent reading this.

 

[Bigwaff]

I am preparing to transition from my beloved cMP 5,1 (Sierra) to a 2019 MP 7,1 (Sequoia), as I need the 7,1's AVX2 instruction set for Adobe and a couple of other apps. I have the two systems connected to my LAN and intend to use the Migration Assistant but given the long stretch between MacOS versions, and concomitant versions of such apps as Mail, etc., I wanted to find out if others had encountered any problems with such a transition and, if so, what they were, before taking that plunge.

Thanks in advance for any advice and for the time and energy you spent reading this.

Well, you won't be transferring applications or settings as those old app versions won't even run on Sequoia. This leaves just your user data. You are right to have concerns using Migration Assistant given the gap between MA versions itself. How much user data do you have? Perhaps you can simply copy the data between Macs.

 

[Valdaquendë]

Thanks, Bigwaff. I do realize that apps like my ancient DBMS, my Adobe apps and others will not be usable; I'm particularly sad to lose Ambrosia Software's "Snapz Pro" (easily the best screenshot-screen recording app I've ever had), Adobe CS5 (which I did NOT have to subscribe for), my accounting software and a handful of other well-used and/or beloved apps and utilities. But I'll keep the original system up, running and networked so I can use these until the transition makes that unnecessary.

Moving the data and apps manually will be more time-consuming and tedious but would result in a much cleaner system. I am a tech professional, graphic artist, inventor and all-around nerdy fellow with a huge range of interests. My boot volume weighs 1.2TB (with user data weighing 900+ GB) and that doesn't count the three 4TB data drives in the old system (I plan on 3D-printing a 3-SSD drive cage and installing SSDs in the new system). So I was tempted to just MA the boot volume and and clean up the mess afterward.

But I think your perspective convinces me; it will take more time to move the data and install the latest versions of (or substitutes for) apps that can't make the transition but the result will be cleaner, leaner and as efficient as possible. Again, thanks.

I'm open to any other advice, as well, so if you or anyone else has additional POV, it is welcome. Thanks again.

 

[reader50]

If you have sufficient free drive space on your 5,1 (or a spare drive bay) you could clone your Sierra install. Then do a Sequoia install on top of the clone, within the 5,1 (leaving your existing Sierra install untouched).

This would let you test if Sequoia can handle an upgrade directly from Sierra, or if you need an intermediate upgrade to Mojave. Then further upgrade to Sequoia.

It would also let you curate what software still works in Sequoia, while still on the 5,1. Delete or upgrade any problem apps, and celebrate any apps that unexpectedly still work.

After curating, you'll have a more limited migration size, and guaranteed compatibility with Sequoia MA on the 7,1.

 

[Valdaquendë]

Reader50, thanks for that input; good thought. If I understand correctly, I would be cloning the SSD, leaving it connected to the 5,1, booting from the Sequoia installer on the 5,1 and performing an install to the cloned volume. I have never tried an install to a non-boot volume on a machine that was incompatible with the version being installed but could certainly try doing so.

I have not installed OpenCore on the 5,1 so, although I can clone the 5,1's boot SSD using CCC, I would have thought I'd need to connect the clone as an external to the 7,1, start MA and then import from the SSD. But your suggestion is intriguing; I may have to do it just to try it out. And it does have benefits, as you suggest. Thanks!

 

[reader50]

Oops, yes. You'd need to either stop at Mojave on your 5,1 or install OCLP. And if you've never installed Mojave before, you'll have to go through certain versions to get your firmware updated to the latest version (144.0.0.0.0). We have a sticky thread on how to update to Mojave, to insure you get the firmware updates along the way.

My suggestion is triggering a side project. But I'm not sure Sequoia MA can reliably import all the way back from Sierra. Or even if Sierra will support MA over ethernet. Your 5,1 definitely won't do target disk mode over ethernet. An external drive enclosure, connected to your 7,1 sounds much faster - if Migration Assistant will import across that many OS versions.

 

[mattspace]

I am preparing to transition from my beloved cMP 5,1 (Sierra) to a 2019 MP 7,1 (Sequoia), as I need the 7,1's AVX2 instruction set for Adobe and a couple of other apps. I have the two systems connected to my LAN and intend to use the Migration Assistant but given the long stretch between MacOS versions, and concomitant versions of such apps as Mail, etc., I wanted to find out if others had encountered any problems with such a transition and, if so, what they were, before taking that plunge.

Thanks in advance for any advice and for the time and energy you spent reading this.

I did a similar move from High Sierra on 5,1 to Ventura on 7,1 and honestly, the best thing you can do is start from scratch and *not* bring any unnecessary preferences etc with you.

If your email is IMAP, if you're using iCloud, Messages in The Cloud for iMessage etc, just make your new user account the same name, and the same ID number, eg if your first account on the original system is Administrator, and 501, and your daily driver account is Person & 502, then do the same thing for the new machine, and all the permissions etc should then be equivalent.