[HyperX]

I have a first gen Intel Mac pro. If I were to buy a new mac pro, could I just put the old hard drive into the new mac and all would work? Or is it better to use the migration wizard (whatever its called) to transfer my stuff from one mac to the next?

[Doc HM]

You have a couple of options. Your MacPro and the new one both use standard SATA drives and have two internal bays.

You can simply take the drive from your old Mac and install it in the second bay in the new Mac. From there you can either keep it in place, copy the data over manually or use Migration Assistant to transfer your settings.

With these Macs I normally recommend using the second internal drive and a copy of Super Duper to give you a daily clone of your drive and instant availability of a bootable backup should your main drive go all runny.

[Doc HM]

One small fly in the ointment should you simply want to use your old drive is the version of the OS you are using. Macs won't boot to a version of the OS older than the one they came installed with. All new MacPro's come with 10.5 so if your old machine is running 10.4.11 then you would have issues since the older OS doesn't know about any new drivers etc needed for the newer machine.

[SierraDragon]

Migration is fine for data only, but IMO the smart move is newly installing all apps on any new box. Moving all the old code - much of it not needed - from an old box is a bad idea, sort of like moving all the dirt, junk and dust bunnies when you move to a new home. Long term, clean installations make for better performance and stability, especially for folks who use multiple heavy applications like graphics.

-Allen Wicks

[OreoCookie]

If the version of OS X you're using supports the hardware of the new Mac Pro, then yes, no problem at all. Basically, if you're using 10.5, everything should work like a charme.