Moving to Sierra - Restore files

[brado32]

Hi folks.. Not sure where to exactly post this. Plus, I'm sure this has been covered. I am running on a very stable Yosemite system. Hack is used in a studio. With the purchase of some new gear, I must now move to Sierra for support. My head is spinning a bit on how best to upgrade without having to re-install lots of audio stuff. My plan was to use a brand new 250g SSD drive to load a fresh new copy of Sierra on. My question is how to backup my old Yosemite drive with all my audio apps on it and restore on the new sierra drive. Would time machine do this?

any help would be greatly appreciated.

thanks

-B

 

[pastrychef]

If I were in your position, I would just clone your current working system drive to the new SSD. Then try to upgrade directly from Yosemite to Sierra. If it works well, you can avoid any "reinstalling". If it doesn't work, you have a full backup on the new SSD.

Remember to also backup your existing, working EFI folder to the SSD. Prior to upgrading to Sierra, upgrade Clover to the latest version.

 

[brado32]

If I were in your position, I would just clone your current working system drive to the new SSD. Then try to upgrade directly from Yosemite to Sierra. If it works well, you can avoid any "reinstalling". If it doesn't work, you have a full backup on the new SSD.

Remember to also backup your existing, working EFI folder to the SSD. Prior to upgrading to Sierra, upgrade Clover to the latest version.

Thanks for the reply. I was reading issue on here going from Yosemite to Sierra direct. I saw most folks having to go to El Cap first. Was trying to avoid fooling with the EFI folder as well. Is there still a migration tool in Sierra? Just thought about that. New clean Sierra install on new SSD, plug in old SSD and use migration tool and migrate /users /applications?

 

[pastrychef]

Yes, Migration Assistant still exists. If/when you use it, be careful with transferring over "Settings". Sometimes, this will cause problems...

That being said, I haven't done a clean install since transitioning from PowerPC to Intel and that was well over a decade ago. Even when I switched from my Mac Pro to my hackintosh, I just transplanted the SSD, installed Clover and continued on my way.