Switching To The Mac: Four Ways To Move Your Data

One of the key steps in a seamless migration from the Windows world to OS X is to transfer all of your data. It is a lot easier than you think.

So here they are, the four ways to move your data, in order from ideal to most annoying.

#1. Network it to your PC. If you have or will be buying a router, and your Windows PC is not tainted or infested in some way, then you might be able to network it with your Mac. You’ll have to get your PC connected to your router, of course, but if it is still capable of the task your Mac will recognize it as a part of your local area network.

Your PC will show up in the Finder (the Mac’s version of “Windows Explorer”) and you can select to “mount” the drive onto Finder - which basically acts as a Windows-style shortcut.

The down side, of course, is you need to be familiar enough with your PC to get it working with a router. This might be easier to do if you’re switching from a Windows XP platform, but could get frustrating on earlier editions of Windows.

We still own one PC and have it running on our network. The machine runs Windows XP; we rarely have problems connecting between the two to transfer files on our network.

#2. Use your iPod. Another easy way to transfer your data is to use an external hard disk. Your iPod can do that.

I own a 40 Gb iPod, and transferring data between computers was a breeze - just drag and drop. There is one down side to this method: if you don’t already own an iPod or external hard drive, this one might be a little cost prohibitive.

If you have a large amount of data, and a small or full iPod, this one might not work for you. It has come in very handy for us, though.

#3. Burn it onto CD or DVD. This is a really great idea because you can back up a permanent copy of all of your data - and use the discs in your new Mac at your convenience.

Depending on your data and the blank media you’ve got laying around, it might take some time to burn it all to disc. Burning CDs will probably be a bit more annoying if you have a lot of data, so you might want to keep all of your disks in a CD organizer or on a CD spindle.

If you’re a data packrat like I am, this kind of project could take a whole Saturday.

#4. Back up your files on the internet. There are a variety of services that offer free or low-cost data storage via the internet. The most notable free one is Gmail, which lets you attach files to draft e-mail messages and save them in your account.

These services may not work if you have a lot more than a few Gigabytes of data. So if we’re talking about mostly Word and Excel documents - and not your entire digital media collection - this might work nicely for you.

What works for you?