Upgrade your drive, but keep your data
using Migration Assistant

Eventually, a time will come when you want to upgrade your main boot drive to something larger and/or faster. The question is, though, how to get all the information stored on your old hard drive onto your new one.

If your system is working perfectly, and you just need to transfer everything to a new drive, then cloning your data over to the new drive will likely be the quicker, easier option.

If, however, you are:

• having troubles with your OS and need to reinstall
• upgrading to a new OS with your new hard drive, but don't want to lose all your data
• upgrading your drive, but only want to transfer the files and settings you need
• concerned with using third-party software, and want to use a built-in solution

there's a way to start from a freshly-installed OS on a new drive, yet still keep all the important data. It's built into the system (and the installer); it's called Migration Assistant.

In this quick walkthrough, we'll go through the steps required to bring your data over using Migration Assistant after upgrading your hard drive.

Getting Started

Whenever you’re moving data, it’s always recommended to make a backup of your data to another drive. That way, if something inexplicably goes wrong, your data stays safe.

Once your data is backed up, you can replace the current hard drive in your computer with the newer, larger one. You can find the instructions for replacing the hard drive in many Mac models in our tech center.

Once you have installed your new drive, you may then boot to the installation CD. In order to install the OS, though, you will first need to format the drive.

Formatting the Drive

	Go to the Utilities menu at the top of the screen and select Disk Utility. You should get a window that looks similar to this.
	Select the new drive from the list on the left, then click the “Partition” tab.
	Select the number of partitions you want (usually you'll only want one) and name the drive.

Select the “Options…” button, and select the appropriate partition scheme for your model computer. Generally, if you have an Intel Mac, then you want to select GUID; if you have a PPC machine, you want to select Apple Partition Map. Click “OK” when you're done.

Click the "Apply" button to the lower right. You will be asked if you’re sure you want to partition the drive. Click the “Partition” button and your drive will be made ready for installation. Once the process has finished, close the Disk Utility window and proceed with installation as normal.

Transferring Data

After your computer restarts, you will be given the option to import data from another source. Select the option to import from another drive connected to the computer.

At this point, you will need to make sure your old drive is somehow attached to your computer, whether it be via an external enclosure, the NewerTech Voyager Q or S2, or the NewerTech USB 2.0 Universal Drive Adapter. Once your drive is connected, you should be able to select it as a drive to Migrate from.

	Select all the accounts that you’d like to bring over from your original drive.
	Next, select what other options you’d like to bring over. To help reduce the chances of an application “breaking,” it is recommended that you bring over everything in this screen. The same goes for the next screen.

Once you have made all your choices, the transfer of your data will begin. Depending on the amount of data on your old drive and the speed of the connection between your old drive and your new one, this can take up to several hours to complete.

Once the transfer has finished, follow the screens to complete the rest of the installation process. Once the process has completed, you should be able to log into your account, just as you always did. The only difference should be that you have more drive space to work with.

What to do with the drive you just removed

Now that you have your OS up and running with your new hard drive, you still have the drive you removed. What can you do with it?

There are two basic options:

1. You can keep it off to the side, as a "snapshot" of your system prior to the upgrade.
2. You can put the drive in an external enclosure and use it as extra, portable storage.

The second option is probably the one you want to go with - after all, you can always use more storage space. We do recommend, though, that you make sure everything on your new drive works as expected before clearing off your old one and using it as portable storage - better safe than sorry!

A Bit of a Down Side

As with any upgrade that involves software, your mileage may vary; no process is foolproof, and I would be doing you, the reader, a disservice if I told you everything will transfer perfectly.

In one of my test transfers, I had some trouble with some utilities I had installed, though a simple reinstall of those quickly resolved the issue. In another instance, I lost all my Networking settings, and had to reset them.

Time spent spot-cleaning little things like this is trivial, though, compared to the time required to bring over files, reinstall apps, and other tweaks generally associated with a clean installation.