Migrate 4tb of pc data to my new MBP

Hi I am a photographer with a lot of image files....4tb on my pc internals backed up with a 8tb WD

Just got a new MBP with a 1tb ssd. My pc system consists of 2 internal 2tb drives, with an external WD 8tb My book duo with WD software doing backups. I want to end up with the MBP 1tb as a "workbench" pulling from a new 6 tb drive then returning the "image files" back to the 6tb drive. Then have the 8tb drive backing it all up. Yikes how do i get there?!

Thank you in advance for any help you can give me.

Mike

Welcome to the forum. You have alternatives. But first, a question. What/how much is on the 8tB now? I ask because if the MBP is going to be your central machine, you should format both the new 6Tb and the old 8Tb for the Mac. But if you want to share with your Windows pc, then you either have to get software for the PC to be able to write to HFS+ drives (apple standard) or get software for the Mac to be able to write to NTFS (Windows standard). I think each can read the other's format. I know OS X can read NTFS, but not write without third party software but I don't use Windows, so I don't know if it can read HFS+ at all.

And then you have to decide how to backup the 6Tb to the 8Tb drive. If both are in Apple format, then something like Carbon Copy Cloner or Super Duper! will do the job. ChronoSync can be used to keep them in sync, which makes them effective backups. So, if there isn't too much on the 8Tb drive now and you can put it somewhere temporarily, and if you want to use the MBP as the primary machine, then you should put what is on the 8Tb onto a temporary place, reformat the 8Tb in HFS+ from the Mac, then copy back the files from the holding place to the 8Tb using the Mac. If you buy the 6Tb drive and format it for HFS+, then you could use the Mac to read the 8Tb and copy the files to the 6tb for you, then format the 8Tb HFS+ and again copy from the 6Tb to the 8Tb. That's a ton of data moves and will take a very long time unless your external drive interfaces are fast (USB3, Thunderbolt).

But before we start slinging bits around, what/how much is on the 8Tb, which machine will be primary for you and do you need both Windows and OS X to be able to read and write the drives?

I am going to sell the PC. I will reformat the 8 terabyte for Mac OS and use that as the back up unit. So I need to migrate the 2 2 TB drives from the PC to the 6 TB external attached to the Mac. I have USB 3 on the PC and also on the 8 TB unit.

Mike

Then have a read of this:

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204087

That will show you how to migrate from a PC to your new Mac.

Thanks Jake
I had read that before, and what it covers is clear but what I still am wondering about when using the migration assistant can I, as I am migrating, target the migration directly to that 6 TB external attached to the Mac. Had a pretty big snowstorm here in Northwest Ohio and didn't get the cabling or the 6 TB drive. I will try to pull the trigger on this project tomorrow after getting some cabling and the drive.

Mike

Tough question. I don't know how to get it done easily. MA will move from your boot drive in the pc to the boot drive in the Mac. I haven't used it with Windows, so I don't know if it will move from an external on the PC to an external on the Mac. The challenge is that the internal drive on the Mac is only 1Tb, so what you need is a "swing" drive to hold the data. One thing you MIGHT try (if the 8TB has the space) is to use the PC to move the data to the 8TB, then attach the 8Tb to the Mac and let it read (which it can) the data on the 8TB and move it to the 6TB. Once that is done and tested, you can delete it from the 8Tb.

Just a thought: Can you mount the PC as a drive from the Mac? That is, set it up to share over your network, then copy over that network from the PC to the external 6TB on the Mac directly? That would be a slower operation but if you can use wired Ethernet instead of WiFi, you may get a tolerable speed for the transfer. Then, once you have the data on the 6TB and are comfortable that it's working properly, you can reformat the 8TB as your backup on the Mac and you're there.

One other thought: Are all the files you want to move on the 8TB as part of a backup? If so, and if they are just copies and not stored in some strange format through the WD software, it may be possible to attach the 8TB and 6TB both to the Mac and copy the files from the 8 to the 6 (after formatting the 6 for Mac), and then once you know it's done properly, reformat the 8 for the Mac and set it up as your backup, letting your backup software copy it from the 6 to the 8. And if it is in some strange format on the 8 because of the WD backup software, you can see if there is a way to extract it from the backup to just regular files and do the same thing.

Hope I'm not over-thinking it.

Hey guys I got things rolling. Got the 6 TB formatted for Mac and attached it to the MacBook Pro. An Apple guy at Best Buy said that he thought the best way was to mount my PC drives in a USB enclosure or a docking station, I opted for the docking station with a USB connected to the Mac. I was able to see the drive on the Mac and copied the files over in one big chunk of about 1.7 TB it's still chugging along but it looks like it's going to be about four hours total. So far this looks like an ideal solution the docking bay was only 30 bucks, no more expensive than a cable. As soon as this drive is done transferring I will switch to the second 2 TB and do the same. When everything looks stable I will reformat be a terabyte as a Mac drive and set it up to be a Time Machine backup. If I run into any issues I will post that thanks for the replies from everybody.

Mike