Upgrading and downsizing

When I properly moved to Canberra in 2017, I decided it was time to upsize my computer from my trusty MacBook Air that I'd toted around for many years, and so I invested in a brand new iMac.

Seven years on, it's not what it used to be. It takes a good 10-15 minutes to properly start up, and it's sluggish at best. Probably the best thing about it is the 1 TB hard-drive that I'd barely made a dent on. I've known for about a year that it was going to be time to move onto a new computer. But I wasn't quite ready to invest in another chunky desktop - nor was I inclined to move back to a MacBook. 

Not long ago, I also received a work laptop that I could use when working from home. Which is great, except that 7-8 hours a day hunched over a laptop isn't be best ergonomic option. So, I bought myself a nice sensibly sized 27-inch monitor. I also have my iPad set up on a tripod on the desk to attend Teams meetings, etc. As you can imagine my desk was getting a bit cluttered, with all this gear.

So, Friday's little episode was the impetus that I needed to make the final steps toward decommissioning my old iMac. The solution? A Mac mini. I already have all the Apple peripherals needed - a monitor, keyboard, trackpad *and* mouse. Plus it's the perfect computer for taking up minimal space on the computer. One trip to my local purveyor of electronic equipment, and I had a shiny new thing on my desk.

Transferring everything from my old iMac to my new Mac mini was as simple as pressing the on button, and making sure they were both connected to the same wireless network.

This part actually took a while. Afterwards, I realise that this was in no small part because I had never emptied my bin and therefore had 30GB of old files.

Four hours later, all my files had been transferred, and it was time to clean up my old computer. If it was a newer iMac, this would be quite a simple process, but unfortunately not in this case. There was a lot of manual 'deauthorising' and signing out of accounts, and then the final erasing of the hard drive. Another hour later, it's packed away and ready to be sent off to be pulled apart and recycled for parts.

On the plus side, my desk is now feeling SO spacious and my computer starts up in seconds.