Funny how you get used to an old computer, never thinking of replacing it since, well, it works. Years go by, tons of work, Facebook posts, etc. Then one day….BOOM! #RIP #logicBoard
So last night I had to scramble to get a replacement laptop to finish some work. I knew I’d have to buy something with 1TB of space, and that it would take hours to transfer the data. Especially when the ports on the old computer don’t match up with the ports on new computers.
Apple had some referbished MacBook Pro laptops, but they’re expensive, even though they’re referbished. I needed a 15 or 16″ laptop, with a dedicated GPU (since I run two 4K monitors at home), 16GB RAM, and 1TB SSD.
The closest thing Apple’s referb site had was a MacBook Pro (15-inch, 2017), with 16GB, 1TB, but no dedicated GPU…for a whopping $2,000. Took a peek at their 13″ refurbished offerings but quickly moved on because, well, GPU.
I surfed over to Craigslist, didn’t see anything close to what I wanted. Then someone told me about Facebook’s Marketplace. Hmm…never looked at that part of Facebook. Glad I took the time!
I found the exact MacBook Pro (15-inch, 2017) I was looking for, and it with had a 3.1GHz processor and the battery charge cycle count was 10! The guy wanted $1,400 and was 30 minutes away. Got there quickly, confirmed the seller was legit, and got home 30 min later.
Ok now for the data transfer. I’m a huge fan of Apple’s Migration Assistant for home use. I wish Apple would make it enterprise worthy, but not holding my breath, they haven’t taken our request seriously. No money in it I guess.
I have a dual band router at home, running a 5 GHz and 2.4 GHz networks. I have the 5 GHz network set to give VoIP highest priority, and the 2.4 GHz network is left at it’s default settings. I connect my iOS devices to the 5 GHz network so I can have the best audio/video possible for Facetime (family) and Teams (work).
I connect my personal and work computers to the 2.4 GHz where I left the router defaults, and I’m able to get excellent performance.
Compared to trying to do Teams calls over a single band router, through a VPN connection…well, that’s just crazy. If you don’t have a dual band router, get one. Oh, wait, the stores are closed….oh well…
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Getting back to the new laptop, I started the Migration Assistant transfer over the 2.4 GHz network, the estimated transfer time was 8 hours plus. Well, its 1AM and I start work at 9AM so that’s not going to work.
I ended up putting both computers on the 5 GHz network and starting Migration Assistant again. This time I got a 3 hours plus estimate. Sounds right, and I confirmed when I woke up at 5AM and found the transfer finished already.
Oh well, I’m a happy camper. I’ll pull the 1TB SSD off the old computer and put it in an enclosure so I can rsync the new laptop’s SSD to it a couple times a day. Yes, SSD drives fail too. Even though last night’s failure was the logic board.
Overlander at large 