I got a new 21″ iMac last week.

My old iMac was from 2008. It was maxed out on RAM, was on its 3rd internal hard drive, and was slowing down. So 6 years later, I decided it was time for an upgrade.

I purchased it online at the Apple Store and it arrived on Tuesday. It wasn’t until Friday that I was able to finally get to work on my new Mac, after many hours of setup. Yes, it took probably 6 hours over 3 days to get to the point where I could get back to normal work.

So why did it take so long?

One reason is because I wanted a fairly unusual setup — I put my Home folder (where all my documents live) on an external hard drive, and kept the system and software on the internal drive. This required some fancy Terminal commands.

But it wasn’t just my special setup. I had to migrate data from a Time Machine backup, run all the system updates, upgrade software that’s no longer working, log back in to Dropbox and CrashPlan and iTunes, and ensure my mail was still coming and going.

When our clients ask us, “Why did moving me to a new Mac take so long? I thought Apple made it easy!” The answer is that the basics are easy, but getting all the details right so a client can just get to work takes time. Now I know from personal experience.