Migration Assistant over USB?

appexappex
Posted:
in Current Mac Hardware
Migration Assistant over USB? Is it possible to use Migration Assistant over USB? To migrate from 13-inch MacBook Air (mid 2009), which has a single USB 2 (480 MBit/s) port, into a new MacBook Pro (mid 2017) 2.13GHz Core 2 Duo/2GB/128GB SSD, which has two Thunderbolt 3 ports.
 
If possible, how to do it? Because I think that Target Disk Mode (TDM) does not work on the MacBook Air described above (since it only has a USB port; it does not have Thunderbolt or FireWire ports).
 
If possible, I do not want to use WiFi (it is utterly slow and unreliable) or Ethernet (cumbersome and also quite slow and unrealiable sometimes).
 
Thanks!

Comments

  • Reply 1 of 5
    Mike WuertheleMike Wuerthele Posts: 6,942administrator
    It is not possible to use Migration Assistant over a hodgepodge of USB cables, no. Given the gap in ages between the two machines, your best bet is probably a manual migration, where you copy your critical files off the old machine onto a USB 2.0 drive or a network share, and move them to the new machine.
    edited July 2017
  • Reply 2 of 5
    appexappex Posts: 687member
    Thanks. I guess then that the best approach would be to make a full backup of the old MacBook Air with Time Machine into an external disk using USB cable, and then use Migration Assistant on the new MacBook Pro to migrate from such backup using Thunderbolt cable. Right?
  • Reply 3 of 5
    sphericspheric Posts: 2,710member
    appex said:
    Thanks. I guess then that the best approach would be to make a full backup of the old MacBook Air with Time Machine into an external disk using USB cable, and then use Migration Assistant on the new MacBook Pro to migrate from such backup using Thunderbolt cable. Right?
    That will probably be as fast as but less involved than doing it via Ethernet. 

    Small detail: you won't be using a Thunderbolt cable. The ports on the new machine are USB-C. 

    Thunderbolt uses the same plugs, but when you hook up a USB hard drive, it's plain old USB via a USB-C cable or adapter. There is no translation going on, and Thunderbolt isn't involved. 
    This is important because it means that you can use cheap third-party cables and adapters for USB stuff - there's nothing involved going on. 
  • Reply 4 of 5
    appexappex Posts: 687member
    spheric said: Small detail: you won't be using a Thunderbolt cable. The ports on the new machine are USB-C. 
    Thanks for the feedback. I think that I will be using Thunderbolt, since Time Machine backup will be in a disk with both USB and Thunderbolt ports. So, I will use the former port (USB) for the backup from the old MacBook Air, disconnect it and then connect via Thunderbolt cable to the new MacBook Pro for Migration Assistant to migrate from backup.
  • Reply 5 of 5
    sphericspheric Posts: 2,710member
    appex said:
    spheric said: Small detail: you won't be using a Thunderbolt cable. The ports on the new machine are USB-C. 
    Thanks for the feedback. I think that I will be using Thunderbolt, since Time Machine backup will be in a disk with both USB and Thunderbolt ports. So, I will use the former port (USB) for the backup from the old MacBook Air, disconnect it and then connect via Thunderbolt cable to the new MacBook Pro for Migration Assistant to migrate from backup.
    Ah, of course THEN you will indeed be using Thunderbolt! :smile: 
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