Best way for Mac OS X rebuild? (a little long. TIA)!

[sekker]

My MBPR motherboard failed recently, and I will pick up the repaired machine tomorrow at the Apple Store.

http://forums.macresource.com/read.php?1...sg-1740853

The Apple Store sent it in for a Depot repair (diagnosis was GPU hardware failure), so I should be starting with a machine with great hardware.

I think it's time to put a fresh OS install with apps on the machine. I have this viable backup machine with a cloned copy of my main machine, and (surprisingly) no immediate deadline at work (stuff due Wed, but not a big deal). I'm also pretty sure I have not done a clean OS install since my TiPB! 10.3 on PPC to 10.4 (Lapzilla PB), to Intel Mac (MBP), to SR MBP (3 Mobo replacements, data cloned each time...), to MBPR. Even the most recent had some hiccups just going from 10.8 to 10.9, so I bet I have a ton of legacy software I can jettison. I also figure 10.9.4 on a MBPR is also a pretty stable base to start from for 10.10 down the road.

Here's my current plan:
I) Backup, backup, archive, and backup. I am taking my Time Machine for the last 18 months offline as a deep archive. I will have a bootable clone of my current machine at work and at home on USB3 drives, one is portable so it can go with me on my next couple trips in case something doesn't get transferred. And I have this backup machine, which I will keep operational until I've declared everything working. And any important files I've generated/edited since my machine had its heart attack are in Dropbox to allow me to forward migrate trivially.

II) I am using my home i3 iMac as a base station to install the brand-new OS and apps onto a scratch drive (in this case, an OWC SSD). I was hoping I could make this a base install that I could use to clone onto my MBPR. I will wait to install some apps (like Parallels and windows 8 for that virtual machine) when I have the MBPR hardware.

1_ Question for you gurus: It's taken me nearly 6 hours to get all of the apple, microsoft, adobe, institution and related software on the machine already, and I have another 2-3 hours for sure installing random software. Am I setting myself up for failure down the road - in other words, does Mavericks do a machine-specific install such that my iMac-tailored software will not work on the MBPR? I pick up my MBPR 6pm Sunday night. I will be able to do some software installations Sunday evening, but I will not have time to start from scratch on the MBPR hardware and have a working MBPR Monday. But if you think that's a recipe for disaster down the road, I will wipe and start from scratch on the installs.

2.User admin and folder question: One reason I've always used migration assistant and moved my stuff onto my Mac has been issues with permissions. I have a current 'sekker' user on the new iMac install (the default admin I use for home machines), but I have a different user name on my work machine. What's the best way to get my older data onto the machine? Do I just use migration assistant to move a second user over (I don't want to move junk over, so this is not preferred to me)? Or can I just do an OS9-style, connect with the data on an external drive and copy over my documents folder manually? Sorry if this is a simple question, but I do not find UNIX permission policies obvious to me and have run into unexpected conflicts in the past when I did not use migration assistant.

3. Apple Mail. I feel just a LITTLE bit better when OWC Larry also experiences that this app in 10.9 is a PITA. Nevertheless, I use Apple Mail as my digital office. As you can imagine, between Apple's antics and my neglect, Apple Mail is a total mess. This is the absolute biggest issue for me - I need my email office to be operational. I also have over 100GB of stuff. I clearly do not need all of that junk! I suspect that if I just copy it all over again by migration assistant that I may not be worth my while to rebuild my machine.
Question: I know I can export folders one at a time and import them into Apple Mail. I need to move about a dozen mission-critical folders. Is that the best way? The good news is that this process does let me move them over in a distributed way - i.e. I can export the folders from the loaner machine, and import them systematically onto the MBPR. But if there were some way to do this (i.e. copy over the folders I want all at once directly via a drag and drop in finder), that'd be easier.

As always, I really appreciate all of the great help I get on this board. TIA!

[mattkime]

I wouldn't use a time machine backup as an archive. If you have projects you can archive, simply copy them to a drive that you never use. the tm backup will require time machine software to get to the files. who knows how long the existing tm format will last.

[sekker]

mattkime wrote:
I wouldn't use a time machine backup as an archive. If you have projects you can archive, simply copy them to a drive that you never use. the tm backup will require time machine software to get to the files. who knows how long the existing tm format will last.

Agree 100%. I am calling it my 'deep archive' - something I will go to if I cannot find a file on one of the bootable copies I will keep around as a single point in time.

And this is temporary during this rebuild. Once I have a working new OS, I will resume my CCC / TM / dropbox backup and archival system (my web-based database is monthly archived on optical media stored off-site).

[jdc]

Wish I had an answer.

Just installed Mavs on my new SSD, also in an external case, and I *think* going to migrate from 10.6.8. (despite my 10.6.8 FOREVER rant earlier). There is some software thats 10.7 or better that I would like to start using.

Im not worried about any software or documents, since I own all my software and keep 99% of my docs on an external.

Mail is my life too. My last rebuild I just copied it over -- I wanted to keep all my rules, folders and whatnot intact -- but now years later my box is filled with junk. Stuff from 2007 that I know I will never need. Some emails didnt translate well and are blank. But no way that I can think of except for to go through them all manually. Might take days or endless clicking. ugh.

But theres a lot of it that I do need.

I havent researched it, but kinda hoping/wishing that mail might have a multi account setup like Entourage used to have? You could have more than one mail database/archive to access.

[sekker]

I'm clearing an external drive to be a test ground. I'll try copying data over tonight and see where I run into problems.

[sekker]

Update: almost done with the rebuild onto an external FW800 OWC drive I've repurposed. It will serve as a CCC clone drive when done.

Moving apple mail seems ok via the export/import process. What was taking over 100GB on the older machine was under 5GB when exported. I also need to count the gmail, which might be another 5. But I'm glad I did this!

[sekker]

Update 2: cloning the rebuild. So far, lots of mail, photostream and other iCloud issues that have been nagging problems are resolved.

[RAMd®d]

Please comment on the responsiveness of your new OS once you're done.

I tend to think a lot of the slowness we experience is not so much a newer OS on older iron, but tons of crap and kruft that's littered the drive as OSs are constantly updated rather than upgraded.

I missed the days when a Clean Install meant putting the old System folder labeled Old System and getting a brand, spankin' new one. I guess there's just too much going on in OSX for that to happen.

[sekker]

So far, seems 'snappier!'

Seriously, the shutdown time is about 1/3 what it was with the older OS.