Best Migration Option, MacBook to MacBook Pro Retina Display

Greetings. Forgive me if this issue has already been discussed though I could not find a search response on point in the past few months. I have a Black MacBook (2006) which I've loved for years, though it's getting tired (currently running Snow Leopard). Just purchased a 13 in. Retina and I'm exploring best practices for data migration. I've typically used Time Machine though more lately have been using CrashPlan on the iMac which sucks the life out of it during heavy back-up operations. I would like to hear everyone/anyone's suggestions for the best way to move my 320G of data. I have a 4 blade Pegasus Promise available though don't believe I could use Time Machine on the device as it's running as a Raid5. Curious as to what compatibility issues I might face moving from Snow Leopard to Mavericks.
Many thanks for any input.

I find using Time Machine to migrate data from an older Mac to a new one to be easy and fairly fool proof. Just follow along....

Make a 100% backup using TM of your old Mac. BEFORE creating an account on your new Mac, (important, do not create an account on the new Mac) attach the TM drive to the new Mac. Turn the new Mac on and it should ask you if you wish to transfer data from another Mac. Reply yes, select Time Machine, click OK. It'll take awhile depending on how much data you have to transfer. But everything will migrate over with some exceptions:

Anything that was coded for PPC can not run in Mavericks since Rosetta is no longer included. (Actually since Lion.) For example, if you have Office 2004 it will not run in Mavericks. Any PPC coded software will have to be updated to Intel only before it will run in Mavericks.

Seems pretty straight forward and I have had good success with TM in the past despite the warnings against it getting the job done. However, the more I think about it, do I really need a full TM or bootable restore? Wouldn't it be cleaner to reinstall apps and then simply copy the data files over through my Pegasus?

Believe me, I have tried it both ways and it's way easier to use the TM method I described above. Reinstalling apps can be a pain and copying your data files over can also lead to errors. It's up to you of course....

Understood. I guess the though to a "clean start" on the retina machine is too enticing. That's probably a left over trained response from my Windows days (though clean starting the Black MacBook when I jumped to Snow Leopard was pretty sweet). I suppose I could also create a new account on the retina and then bring over a few of the apps and the data using TM after the fact, right?

By the way, I've been using CrashPlan on the iMac and as I said, it sucks the life out of it during full back-ups (I back-up to both the Cloud and the Promise R4). I'm seeing folks reference Carbon Copy Cloner which I'm considering for the retina and the R4. Any thoughts?

I'm seeing folks reference Carbon Copy Cloner which I'm considering for the retina and the R4. Any thoughts?

Click to expand...

I've been using CCC since my days with Leopard and my old White MacBook. I can't tell you how many times it has saved me from total disaster. I wouldn't be without it. I keep two external hard drives on my desk; one for Time Machine and the other for CCC. It's well worth the license fee. Can't say enough good about it.

Yes, I'm reading good things about it, though I'm not sure I would leave all of those backups, and the source, all on the same desk.