best way to set up new imac from time machine backup

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Hi All,

I am replacing my late 2012 iMac 27 inch which suffered a fusion drive crash last week.

Just have a technical question regarding setting up the new iMac from the time machine backup.

The thing is that my old imac had a 3TB fusion drive and I anyway needed now more space and also wanted to go away from fusion drive to SSD so my new imac has only a 256GB SSD and in addition I will use a external Thunderbold 3 disc with 4TB for storing pictures etc.

I have my time machine backup on a 3TB time capsule and my question is now how should I set up the new iMac since the whole backup wll of course not fit on the internal SSD. Is there a way to choose what to tranfer or install where? I have never done this so it would be good to have some information in advance.
Also my old iMac was not running Mojave so I dont want to restore the full backup with the old OSX etc.

Thanks for your help.

Regards,
Tom
 

chscag

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That's not a very large SSD on your new iMac. The system alone with included apps in macOS will take up around 40GB to begin with.

Best way is to use the Migration Assistant app and selectively move what you absolutely need for your User folder. Normally we recommend a full migration but in your situation you'll run out of space very quickly.

In other words, I would not use Time Machine to do the move. A full Time Machine move is very fast and accurate and will not overwrite the new macOS (Mojave) but you can not use that method.

You can also use a spare external hard drive to manually move apps and data. Keep in mind that your new iMac is formatted to APFS although that won't matter when doing the transfer. Also remember that if you have to reinstall any apps that are licensed and may need activation, you should have all your serial numbers on hand before you start.
 
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Hi and thanks for the detailed answer.

I just didnt want an fusion drive anymore and wanted to go only for SSD and since my main storage vulume are pictures which will be on the external thunderbolt 3 drive, I calculated that 256GB are more than enough for the OS and some apps. Even I reach 100GB I have still a lot of free capacity.

So as you say its impossible to do a normal time machine setup of restoring but would it be possilbe to do a time machine restoring if I am just somehow able to exclude the picture folder?

I have basically several external 4TB I can conect via thunderbolt 3 so capacity is not a problem at all but how does this manually moving of apps and data work which you are describing? Do I have to install everything like apps etc from scratch or can I still somehow move those from time machine backup?


Regards,
Tom
 
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Thanks for your answer ferrarr but since my old iMac has crashed and time machine is not running anymore on that I think that it will not work as described in your link.

Regards,
tom
 
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Whenever I do in clean, fresh installation of a new Mac OS (or even a version within the current one), I am offered the opportunity to "migrate/copy" needed "items" from my backup (I use SuperDuper!). From what I remember, there are 4 categories one can choose: Applications, Your Admin Name (which contain various files/folders), Other Files and Folders, and Computer & Network Settings. At a minimum, you would probably choose Applications, and Computer & Network Settings. But there might be other required files that you'll need in either or both of those other categories.

As I mentioned, I use SuperDuper!, and on both of my Macs, all the "stuff" I have amounts to less than 75 gig. Any other files/documents, etc. that I access occasionally are on a separate partition on both of my external SSDs (the other two partitions on each of them are for my SuperDuper! backups for each of my Macs). Is there any way you can "see" what is contained in those 4 categories?
 
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Thanks for the informatation honestone.

I hope it will work like you described, that would be great.

My thinking would be that when I set up the new mac then I can immediately connect my 4TB Thunderbolt 3 external drive and hopefully I can then move my picture folder which is the biggest part from the time machine backup to the external drive. After that I think al the rest should fint on the internal iMac SSD so I could myabe transfer all the rest but I am right now not sure how this migration assistant work because I have never used it so far.


Regards,
Tom
 
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Tom75, don't "move" the pictures from the TM backup. Copy them. IF you try to "move" them you can, and most likely will, break the database links that make up the TM backup. Yes, it LOOKS like a normal file structure, but it is not. It's a TM backup. So, it may work to copy the files from the TM folder to wherever, but don't "move" them.
 

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So, it may work to copy the files from the TM folder to wherever, but don't "move" them.

Jake is right. Also notice the key word in the quote above is "may". It may work to copy the photos direct from TM to the TB3 drive, however, TM has some oddities in that the file structure is not a normal file structure. TM places markers or links to files otherwise the TM drive would fill up quickly with the same info each time a backup was made.
 
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Charlie, thanks for the agreement. I wasn't sure if a copy of something from inside the TM database would actually copy the file or the link. But I guess it couldn't hurt to try it that way, given his restriction on storage space. And if he tried to copy a folder, would the result be a link to a folder or the folder, and would the files in the folder be files or link? It's asking Finder to do a lot to dig through the TM database to get to a file in a folder that may be fragmented over multiple backups over time.

One wild thought on this is to use a second external drive, install the OS on it, boot from it, then do the TM restore to that external for those pictures to get them into file format, then reboot from the internal drive, copy the pictures from the restored drive to wherever he wants them to be ultimately and then repurpose the bootable external back to just storage. Given drive prices, if he doesn't mind spending the time, that may be a good way to do what he wants.
 

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One wild thought on this is to use a second external drive, install the OS on it, boot from it, then do the TM restore to that external for those pictures to get them into file format, then reboot from the internal drive, copy the pictures from the restored drive to wherever he wants them to be ultimately and then repurpose the bootable external back to just storage. Given drive prices, if he doesn't mind spending the time, that may be a good way to do what he wants.

That will work Jake, and I second your recommendation to do it that way. I have a feeling that a straight copy from TM to his TB3 drive is probably not going to work. However, it won't hurt for him to try.
 
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Thnaks guys for the valuable input, this idea with the external drive sounds good. mu external Thunderbolt 3 setup is a "Akitio Thunder3 Quad X" and I have several 4 TB drives in there which are empty and could be used for this purpose.

Just a question to take this idea further, because I didnt know that I can simply install an OS and boot from an external drive:

Do I actually need to install an OS on that external disk? I have not thought about that but could I simply connect the external drive to my old iMac with the damaged hard HD and, start it and just do a normal time machine restore to external drive Nr1. Or I could maybe even just install a recovery bootable version of an OS on that external drive?
Anyway when I have done the timne machine restore or installation I can boot from this system and then when I am actually in there I can simply copy my pictures folder etc to the external drive Nr2. After that I dont basically need this system or recovery anymore, do I.

So then I would be able to start up the new iMac with the migration assistant and I would not have to worry about the pictures folder since its already safe.

I just want to be 100% sure when I do such that I dont mess up anything and I got now already very good ideas from you guys so I am sure it will work somehow, I just need to find out the best way. What do you think about the above idea?

I also heard from a friend that the TimeMachine restore will detect the smaller drive and ask you which parts you want to restore to the new smaller drive? is that correct?


Regards,
Tom
 

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I would do a full install on the external drive, then do a restore of the pictures from TM. Takes a bit more time, but should work well. I don't know if your external drive bay will support the effort because I don't know if the boot drive has to be directly attached to the Mac. Your bay is a RAID array and may not be bootable as such. But a smallish direct attach drive will definitely do. You just have to have something large enough to hold the OS and your pictures.
 
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Thanks a lot so far guys I will try this option with the full install and see how that works

Regards,
Tom
 

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