Cloning from a Mac Pro to a MacBook Pro?

[Paddy]

Although I have my doubts, we're discussing the possibility of cloning a Mac Pro to a MacBook Pro on the techsurvivors.net forum; everything I've found here, at Apple and elsewhere indicates that cloning from one model of Mac to another is not a good idea. That said - I booted a Powerbook off an external clone of my G4 for several weeks when traveling a few years ago (my internal drive failed 3 days into the trip!) and another TS member cloned his iMac to an external volume and used it to boot his MacBook Pro for several days when his iMac was in the shop.

So, is there indeed machine-specific stuff that we need to worry about when attempting this? Good idea or very bad idea?

The person who wishes to do this is going to be traveling and would like to simply clone his Mac Pro to the MBP.

[dnanian]

In general terms this is possible. However, recently released MacBook & MacBook Pros are not yet necessarily supported by the 'general' 10.5.6 releases.

You can, of course, create a backup of the MacPro and then try starting up the MacBook Pro from it. That would allow you to test before committing.

Note that in general terms, I suggest migrating from either a full backup or from the original Mac when going Mac to Mac... especially new hardware.

[Paddy]

Thanks, Dave! If he decides to test it with a clone on an external drive, I'll let you know how it goes. :)

[sgmiller]

I just bought a new MBP and had no problem booting from a clone of my old MacBook.

Worked perfectly.