Moving a metric ton of content to a new system - is there a better way?

[epa]

Alright, I've already posted quite a bit on the forums here about my little "adventure" in switching to a Mac after being a lifelong Windows user.

And after nipping a little performance issue in the bud on my M4 Max MacBook Pro (pro tip: if you're having Trainz performance issues on a system that should easily be able to handle it, turn shadow quality down to high. It's not a huge graphical difference but my performance improved dramatically just making that change and leaving everything else on ultra), I'm finally ready to start migrating my content collection, about 10-12 years of accumulation, from my outgoing gaming PC to the new Mac.

This comes to over 700 GB and counting. Over 770,000 assets. As you can imagine, database repairs take all dad gum day. And I will need to source an additional storage solution on the Mac to fit all this and have room on the internal SSD for anything else.

In the meantime, I've been periodically backing up my Local folder on the PC to an external hard drive, partially preparing for the move, partially preparing for a hardware failure on the PC (half my USB ports have unceremoniously stopped working and I want to get as much backed up as I can before the rest quit). My plan here is, when I have extended storage figured out on the Mac, to simply copy the backed-up local folder to the data directory on the Mac install, or import directly from the external HDD in content manager. This should move all my content over, minus any Trainz Store content that will likely need to be downloaded again. I'm pretty sure official DLC is all stored elsewhere.

Theoretically, everything should just copy over, right? Trainz content is all cross platform, more or less, I assume? I know TurfFX will be missing from the routes that use it, but everything else should just be there?

 

[wilts747]

I sync my current 'local' and 'original' Trainz folders to an ancient NAS and have done since the days of Win 7. I'm now a Linux user but when between OS never had an issue cloning these folder between Win and Linux and visa-versa. Remember we are talking .tzarc files but the same will apple to the likes of .cdp files and so forth. Over the years I've learned that backup/cloning is not 100% fool proof and I still export my current work alternatively to two USB sticks as .cdp files after each building session. Peter

 

[JCitron]

Matt,

Share your hard disk on the PC and run SAMBA on your Mac.

You can then copy the folders (directories) over the network from your PC to the Mac.

Your 700 GB will take about 2 or 3 hours to do that depending upon your hard disk and networks speed, based on a wired-network. If you are using a wireless connection, this can take much, much longer but it's still doable.

Before transferring your content, download any and all packages from the Content Store. If you're a Plus user and have downloaded everything, this can take a couple of days. (How would I know...) Do this first prior to copying your content over.

Once this content is downloaded, copy over the Local and Original folders to your new data-folder on your new M4.

If you receive a prompt about overwriting anything, choose skip and then let it rip.

When everything is done run a DBR to incorporate the new content.

I also use High for my shadows. Using anything more caused my video card to scream loudly as the jetliner fans kicked into full speed.