New M4 Mac Mini Questions

ELFritzen wrote:

3. Can I directly connect both of my external HD's to the Mac Mini. I'm confused as to what ports are on the iMac. The technical reports say the iMac has two Thunderbolt Ports and 4 USB-3 Ports. I'm not sure what cables or hubs I would need to connect these external HD's, if it's possible.

Your 2012 iMac has

• Two Thunderbolt 1 ports with the old-style Mini DisplayPort connector, which can double as Mini DisplayPorts.
• Four USB-A ports (USB 3.0) ports.

The Thunderbolt ports do not directly support USB. Since they carry PCIe-type signals, a Thunderbolt dock or adapter could add USB, FireWire, or Ethernet ports. The USB-A ports only carry USB.

Your M4 Mac mini will have five USB-C ports.

• The three rear-panel USB-C ports support USB 3, USB4, DisplayPort, and Thunderbolt v4 (M4) or v5 (M4 Pro). They adapt to the needs of whatever device you plug in.
• The two front-panel USB-C ports support USB 3 (only).

When you're talking about USB protocol, there are many ways to go between USB-C and USB-A. These include

• Adapters like the Apple USB-C to USB Adapter which consume a USB-C port to give you one USB-A port
• USB-A hubs that plug into a USB-C port and give you four or more USB-A ports
• USB-C and Thunderbolt hubs and docks that include USB-A ports among other things.

Many portable external drives have Micro USB 3.0 B ports on the drives themselves, and it is also possible to get USB-C to Micro USB 3.0 B cables to substitute for USB-A to Micro USB 3.0 B ones.

So you shouldn't have a problem finding ways to attach your external HDs.

1) Pick up or barrow an inexpensive USB keyboard and mouse to do the initial setup and pair your older keyboard and mouse.

2) Pick up a couple of USB-C to USB-A adapters so you can plug the keyboard, mouse and Time Machine backup drive into the new Mac mini.

3) Migrate from your Time Machine backup instead of from the old Mac.

Transfer to a new Mac with Migration Assistant - Apple Support

Keep around the USB keyboard and mouse for troubleshooting and re-pairing the older keyboard and mouse.

What kind of hub connected to you iMac?

1. You didn’t say what kind of keyboard, I assume it was USB. If you already have a Thunderbolt 3 dock with USB-A ports, can certainly reuse the USB keyboard. If not, might need a USB adapter because the new Mac Mini does not have USB-A port, or get a new bluetooth keyboard/mouse. I suspect the hub you are currently using with the iMac isn’t compatible with the new Mini.
2. Restore data from Time Machine is easier since your backup was on an external drive, no point restoring via network. You mentioned the external drives are USB-c, just plug direct into the new Mini.
3. Same with above, just plug direct into the new Mac.
4. iCloud requires setup, relatively easy but you may need to tell Photos.app where is your system library, same thing with Music.app. Syncing desktop and document folders should be straightforward assuming you did not relocate the folders to external drive or elsewhere.

When you launch Setup Assistant (the first time your turn on a Mac) it will get to a point where it asks if you are migrating from another Mac. After you select Yes and select the Time Machine External Hard Disk it will ask if you want to migrate:

• Settings
• Apps
• Documents

Just check the boxes of what you want migrated. It is an all or nothing box though, meaning if you select just Documents it will migrate ALL the documents. Of course the same holds true for settings and apps. The ONLY exception on the apps is if you happen to have some very old 32bit apps, they will not migrate.

Also, you cannot migrate an older version of Mac OS onto the new MM. However you can migrate all of the settings. What also will migrate is all of your data files and apps with the exception of legacy 32 bit apps. When the new machine arrives before you turn it on for the first time connect the 2012’s Time Machine backup External Hard Disk to the MM. Then when you startup the new MM for the first time it will launch Setup Assistant. SA will eventually get to a point where it asks if you want to migrate from another Mac, select YES and then follow the on screen prompts.

This is the most reliable and quickest method to migrate. NEVER EVER use WiFi as it fails almost always.

ELFritzen wrote:

Will I be given the option using Migration Assistant and the Time Machine Back Up HD to only migrate the system files and not the applications?

I believe that Migration Assistant has a box that you can uncheck if you do not wish to migrate applications. It gives you some control over the migration – but that control is not very fine-grained.

The easiest way to migrate is from a Time Machine backup or from a bootable clone backup (made with Carbon Copy Cloner or SuperDuper!), whichever you have on hand (or can easily make).