Home Forums Hardware Mac Desktops & Notebooks Going for upgrade, at last?

Hi again,

I'm retired now (hooray) and have plenty of disposable income at the moment (hooray). I'm thinking of finally upgrading the hardware around here. We both have iMacs stuck on Snow Leopard which, as time goes by, gets more and more "pesky".

Therefore I'm thinking of getting two new Macs (one each). That's the way we've always worked and there's no financial reason not to (get two).

Questions: desktops or laptops?
How easy will it be to transfer bookmarks and saved files from the current 10.6.8 to whatever the new Macs come with? How easy/hard will it be to adjust to new OS?

We won't need the new Macs for work any more (HOORAY), will only use them for internet browsing, emails, Skype - which doesn't work any more on 10.6.8 - and other light-weight functions. Portability isn't an issue: due to my husband's ill health our travelling days are severely curtailed ftm.

Any helpful replies to this absurd (?) series of questions will be most gratefully received. Thanks in advance!

Congratulations on your retirement!

I recently switched from an desktop to a laptop, but my desktop was attached to a 27" Firewire monitor that was easy to connect to the laptop, continue to use the full size wireless keyboard and Magic Trackpad I was using with my defunct desktop. So now I have the best of both worlds, great portability when I need it and a big screen to take the strain off my eyes which insist on getting older in spite of their plastic lens replacements.

I actually thought for a while the new MacBook Pro might replace my 12" iPad Pro, but I have found there are some things that are easier to do on the iPad than on the Mac and in the final analysis the iPad is more portable even than the 13" MacBook Pro. However I would not have purchased the iPad Pro if I already had the 13" MBP.

Strictly my personal opinion, but if your iMacs have 27" or even 21" screens you will find even the 15" MacBookPro screen pretty confining. As far as "computing power" a MacBook/Air/Pro is more than enough for all but the most demanding tasks, even an iPad Pro can handle the computing needs of the great majority of users. (I will get static on that statement, but I still stand by it.) But if your future plans include really heavy duty graphics/audio/video processing the iMac Pro has the processing power to handle anything you are likely to throw at it short of commercial graphics/audio/video production.

Personally I think I have almost the ideal solution, a 13" MacBook Pro for portability but running closed lid and connected to a 27" Firewire monitor when I am at my desk. I would like to have a quad core processor, but in truth the dual core is plenty fast enough and probably drinks a bit less battery power when I am traveling in laptop mode and thanks to iCloud, 500GB of storage has proven more than ample. (I had 1TB on my old desktop, but I am only using 127GB of local storage.)

Hi Joe, thanks for replying.

You're right, we would need large screens. These are 21".

Should I go for a 7-stage upgrade, if that is possible, or just jump to a new machine? Either way, could we import our bookmarks and saved files etc.?

You just as well jump straight to the new machine and new OS version. It will be a bigger jump but save a lot of time and aggravation.

Assuming you buy new Macs they will come with High Sierra (MacOS 10.13) and are unlikely to be able to boot previous versions of MacOS so that step is a given. You should have no problem recovering all your data, passwords, etc. The biggest issue you are likely to encounter will be applications that may or may not be compatible with High Sierra. At the very least you should be sure that any and all apps you wish to migrate to the new computers are the very latest release version.

During the setup process of the new computers you will be asked if you wish to migrate anything from another computer, or a Time Machine backup. Full instructions on using Migrations Assistant are found in this Apple Knowledge Base article.

Having recently gone through the process of migrating to a new Mac I would offer some suggestions:

• Don't get rid of the old computers/Time Machine backups/or Clones until you are completely satisfied the transition is correct.
• Uninstall any Adobe, Microsoft apps BEFORE you begin the migration process. It makes reinstallation and registration much simpler
• Don't set up any accounts on the new Macs instead Migrate your user accounts and data with Migration Assistant during the initial setup process.. That way everything stays the same and is familiar.
• While Migration Assistant will optionally migrate all your apps consider re-installing them from their original source…
  • Make a list of all the apps you have installed and install them on the new Macs only when you need the particular app
  • This assures the apps are current and you will probably be amazed at how much junk has accumulated in your systems over the years — this is an easy albeit somewhat time consuming way to clean house.
  • NOTE: I have reinstalled less than â…“ of the apps I had on my old system and in several months of use I have never missed one of those I didn't re-install.
• If you elect to transfer the apps via Migration Assistant do a thorough housecleaning BEFORE starting the migration. You will likely stll have a lot of detritus but at least you will get rid of the most obvious junk. Etrecheck (freeware) can help identify unused and unneeded stuff such as LaunchDaemons and LaunchAgent. There are a number of apps on the App Store to help identify orphan, unused, files and detritus. I use Synium Software's CleanApp which isn't on the App Store.
• Do as I say, not as I did and take your time in the migration. Take a serious look at what you are movign\\ng to the new machine and whether or not you will ever need or use it again. Remember your new Macs will not come with Optical drives so if there is a lot of data you need to "archive" do it before the migration, and buy an external optical drive in case you need to recover any of the archived information. By-the-way there are apps in the App Store that will create a database so you can find specific data on your optical archives.
• Enjoy your new Macs.

Dear Joe

Many thanks for your excellent reply: apologies for the delay in getting back to you. It all sounds very daunting.

Here's an easy question (I assume). Can Macs of different OSs co-exist on the same local network? Sorry to be such a wuss, it's been a long time since I contemplated doing anything like this, and a LOT has happened in the interim.

Apple has gone to great lengths to make transition easy and IMO they have done a good job of it with lots of alternatives. The preparation does take some thought and planning but in the end it will make the finished product cleaner and run smoother, but I can understand your concern. Just take it one thing at a time, read the prompts carefully, and you should have no problem.

Macs with a variety of OS versions, iPads, iPhones, printers, scanners, Apple TVs, door locks, doorbell cameras, security cameras, light switches, garage door openers, and even (yuck, patooey) PCs can and do peacefully consist on the same local network. I have all but a PC on my network.