I have a an old, mid-2007 iMac running 10.11.6 and a new 2017 iMac running the latest 10.12 release.
The old iMac has 800 GB of data on it, spread across three user accounts, that I'd like to migrate to the new iMac. It has an up-to-date Time Machine backup on a USB 2.0 hard drive. FireWire 400 and 800 ports. Gigabit ethernet. I also have an external USB 2.0 hard drive with enough space on it to hold the contents of the old iMac's drive and I own CarbonCopyCloner.
Most of the data is one user account and is generally iTunes media (ripped from CDs, so DRM-free on the hard drive of the old iMac) and Logic/GarageBand project data.
I'm uncertain of my options for transferring the user data from the old iMac to the new iMac.
Can I use migration assistant and attach the Time Machine drive to the new iMac? Can I boot the old iMac into Target Drive mode and mount it, over the network, to the new iMac and rsync the files on to it? Should I clone the the hard drive to an external USB 2.0 drive with CCC and then import that data onto the new iMac?
The data set is sized large enough that I'd like to not have to restart this process several times. What's my most efficient option for transferring everything from one machine to the other in this case?
Best Answer
You've enumerated the options quite well there, most of which are described in greater detail by this Apple support document.
rsync-ing the three home folders across might not preserve all meta-data (which may or may not matter to you), and there are aspects of a user account that exist outside/Users/<username>sorsyncalone wouldn't result in working user accounts. Don't be tempted torsyncanything outside/Users!Plugging the Time Machine drive into the new machine and using Migration Assistant is likely to be the simplest and fastest option. If you want to take the opportunity to leave some cruft behind, it might not be best suited - I don't recall what level of granularity is offered.