Would ethernet cable migrate from Intel iMac to mac mini m1?

[silverlakerCA]

My new Mac Mini M1 arrives tomorrow and I can't wait.
I have an Intel late 2015 iMac that I'd like to transfer content from.

Could I use an ethernet cable between the two and would that be speedy?

If not what would you suggest?

Thanks for your help

 

[mmkerc]

Yes it will work

 

[MacModMachine]

My new Mac Mini M1 arrives tomorrow and I can't wait.
I have an Intel late 2015 iMac that I'd like to transfer content from.

Could I use an ethernet cable between the two and would that be speedy?

If not what would you suggest?

Thanks for your help

it will work , but incredibly slow.

use a thunderbolt 3 to thunderbolt 3 cable , much faster. fairly cheap and 40x faster. all down to the speed of the ssd's

 

[jdb8167]

it will work , but incredibly slow.

use a thunderbolt 3 to thunderbolt 3 cable , much faster. fairly cheap and 40x faster. all down to the speed of the ssd's

Their iMac is Thunderbolt 2 though which would mean they need Apple’s TB2 to TB3 adapter. I’ve used that and it works pretty well. And it is at least 10 times faster than 1gb ethernet.

 

[chrfr]

it will work , but incredibly slow.

use a thunderbolt 3 to thunderbolt 3 cable , much faster. fairly cheap and 40x faster. all down to the speed of the ssd's

For what's presumably a one time job, why buy a thunderbolt cable just to speed up the process a bit? The migration will not be 40x faster over thunderbolt than over ethernet even if the theoretical maximum performance of thunderbolt is 40x that of ethernet.

 

[Stephen.R]

fairly cheap and 40x faster. all down to the speed of the ssd's

A 2015 model iMac is quite likely to have either a mechanical drive or a fusion drive, which still means mechanical for most of the storage space.

An Ethernet cable is entirely the right choice here for a one off task, rather than a tb3 cable and a tb2-3 adapter s/he likely has no other use for.

 

[MacModMachine]

A 2015 model iMac is quite likely to have either a mechanical drive or a fusion drive, which still means mechanical for most of the storage space.

An Ethernet cable is entirely the right choice here for a one off task, rather than a tb3 cable and a tb2-3 adapter s/he likely has no other use for.

the question was never if ethernet is the right choice. it was regard to speed. ethernet would be the slowest possible way. usb 3 would even be significantly faster.

 

[chrfr]

the question was never if ethernet is the right choice. it was regard to speed. ethernet would be the slowest possible way. usb 3 would even be significantly faster.

USB 3 isn't an option for migration between computers. The 2015 doesn't support target disk mode over USB. Wifi would be slower than ethernet, so ethernet is definitely not the slowest way to migrate, and besides, if the 2015 Mac doesn't have an SSD, ethernet will be faster than the disk is.
It's just not worth the cost of a Thunderbolt cable and adapter for a single time use.

 

[Stephen.R]

the question was never if ethernet is the right choice. it was regard to speed.

The question was:

Could I use an ethernet cable between the two and would that be speedy?

Gigabit ethernet is entirely likely to not be the bottleneck when transferring from a computer with a spinning rust drive inside.

For use with two newer Macs where they have a fast SSD (not a SATA SSD or a mechanical drive) and TB3 ports, absolutely I'd suggest the TB3 migration option. While the person may not have a TB3 cable already, they're much more likely to find another use for it afterwards.

 

[Mistercharlie]

I did this with Ethernet and it was plenty fast enough. First time, I migrated from an old iMac with an SSD to an M1 mini, and it took a few hours. The second time (returned the first mini) I migrated from a CCC backup on a USB-3 external SSD. That was way faster, but thenethernet was fine.

 

[MacModMachine]

The question was:



Gigabit ethernet is entirely likely to not be the bottleneck when transferring from a computer with a spinning rust drive inside.

For use with two newer Macs where they have a fast SSD (not a SATA SSD or a mechanical drive) and TB3 ports, absolutely I'd suggest the TB3 migration option. While the person may not have a TB3 cable already, they're much more likely to find another use for it afterwards.

modern spinning disks can do 200MB/s read easily , even older ones can maintain 125-140MB/s , thats faster than ethernet.

 

[chrfr]

modern spinning disks can do 200MB/s read easily , even older ones can maintain 125-140MB/s , thats faster than ethernet.

The disks in a 2015 iMac are not that fast. Again, is it worth a $50 adapter and a $40 cable to do a one time migration?

 

[mikehalloran]

USB 3 isn't an option for migration between computers. The 2015 doesn't support target disk mode over USB. Wifi would be slower than ethernet, so ethernet is definitely not the slowest way to migrate, and besides, if the 2015 Mac doesn't have an SSD, ethernet will be faster than the disk is.
It's just not worth the cost of a Thunderbolt cable and adapter for a single time use.

Yes and no.

802.11ac WiFi is actually faster than Gigabit Ethernet but you have to have a clear shot to your router to actually realize the performance. You can also set up so that the two machines talk to each other directly. It’s not so much faster that I would bother, however.

I agree that, for the one-time use, a length of Cat5e just does the job. If there’s an HDD or Fusion drive in the 2015, nothing will be faster.

Get it started, go watch a movie on TV or whatever… even paint drying is more exciting.

 

[ksloth]

Just start it before you go to bed. ?‍♂️

 

[theSeb]

USB 3 isn't an option for migration between computers. The 2015 doesn't support target disk mode over USB. Wifi would be slower than ethernet, so ethernet is definitely not the slowest way to migrate, and besides, if the 2015 Mac doesn't have an SSD, ethernet will be faster than the disk is.
It's just not worth the cost of a Thunderbolt cable and adapter for a single time use.

Technically speaking a 7200 3.5" drive can reach around 225 MB/s (160-200 average) so it is faster than gigabit ethernet, but your post is correct anyway, since the majority of the migration is small files and a lot of random reads instead of sequential ones, which would not saturate a gigabit ethernet connection.

 

[guzhogi]

I agree on Thunderbolt probably the fastest interface, with speeds limited mainly to the type of drive in the iMac. I work in IT for a school district. A few summers ago, we went from 2014(?) MBAs to 2018 MBAs for the staff. Put their old computers into target disk mode, connected a Thunderbolt 3 cable & TB3→2 adaptor between the old computer and the new, and it went quickly.

Depending what you want to do with your iMac, and how techie you're feeling, it is possible to take out the hard drive and put it into an external hard drive enclosure. Bit of a PITA to take out the drive, but it's possible.

 

[Fishrrman]

OP:

Did you get the new Mini yet?
Have you tried the migration?
How did it go?

 

[mikehalloran]

Technically speaking a 7200 3.5" drive can reach around 225 MB/s …

Every OE Fusion drive HDD I've pulled was 5400. The HDD only iMacs were 7200, however. Did Apple sell those outside the Education market in 2015? I don't recall and am too busy to look it up on everymac.com.

 

[theSeb]

Every OE Fusion drive HDD I've pulled was 5400. The HDD only iMacs were 7200, however. Did Apple sell those outside the Education market in 2015? I don't recall and am too busy to look it up on everymac.com.

Good point. I am not sure how the hdd only models were sold, but it’s academic anyway, since even a 5400 rpm hard drive can saturate a 1 gigabit Ethernet connection.