The best way to transfer to a new MacBook is faster (and cheaper) than you'd think

Follow ZDNET: Add us as a preferred source on Google.

ZDNET's key takeaways

• Transferring to a new MacBook over Wi-Fi can take several hours.
• It's much faster to just use a Thunderbolt 4 or 5 cable.
• There are cheaper cables on the market that work just as good as Apple's.

Over the last few years, the files on my MacBook Pro have certainly piled up. I do my best to manage it, consistently transferring data to the NAS (network-attached storage) after I'm finished using it. But still, my MacBook is home to close to a terabyte of data, mostly videos that I need to edit.

This is not normally a problem, but the other day I upgraded to a new MacBook Pro – faster processor, more RAM, and more storage space – and at this point, even with all this storage, managing the ...