Apple offers a useful utility to transfer files from one machine to another — Migration Assistant. However, its pretty easy to make some bad choices that can make the process painful. Here are some do's and don'ts.
- Do repair permissions with Disk Utility on the machine you are going to be copying from.
- Do run Software Update on the source Mac to confirm that the latest updates are installed.
- Don't try to run Migration Assistant over a WIFI network. (23 hours versus 2.5).
- Do connect the two machines together directly with an Ethernet cable.
- Don't run the Migration Assistant directly from the setup cycle when you boot a new machine for the first time.
- Do complete the new machine setup and then launch Migration Assistant from the utilities folder on both Macs.
- Do disable sleep on both computers using the Energy Saver control panel