New Imac

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New Imac

Hi there I am buying my new Imac today as my previous Mac of 5 years something went wrong with the drive.

I have a couple of questions. I have purchased an external SSD drive as the new mac storage is only 256gb and my time machine backup is over 700gb.

I have done some reading and still confused about whether to plug the time machine in before starting the new mac or do I wait till it is set up and then transfer everything over from time machine to new SSD drive ? How do I tell the mac to put some on the internal drive and some on the external drive ? As you can tell this is my first time changing Macs and due to the old mac having a bigger drive than the new one I am a bit lost...your help would be appreciated ...Kind Regards Brent

My new Mac is : Apple iMac with Retina 4.5K Display 24-inch 8-core GPU 256GB (Blue) [2021]

iMac Line (2012 and Later)

Posted on Apr 10, 2022 9:31 PM

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Answer 1

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Jack-19

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Apr 10, 2022 9:36 PM in response to brentjgray73

Welcome to Apple Support Community.

Unfortunately, you cannot use Migration Assistant to put some files on the new internal drive and an external drive. So, I would suggest that you set your Mac up as "new" (don't transfer anything), inherit your Time Machine backup, and Restore items backed up with Time Machine on Mac - Apple Support to the correct new locations, whether on the internal or external drive.

Jack

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Answer 2

brentjgray73 Author

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Apr 10, 2022 9:41 PM in response to Jack-19

Thanks Jack for the answer, I think I am following what you have written. Ill set the new Mac up. Format the SSD drive so it is Mac compatible and then follow what you have said.

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Answer 3

brentjgray73 Author

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Apr 10, 2022 9:43 PM in response to Jack-19

Sorry Jack another question, could you explain the Inherit Backup to me a bit, sorry im very green at all this.

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