Hi Alan, Hi Peter,
I can sympathise with your predicaments – I recently upgraded two iMacs and a laptop from Snow Leopard 10.6 to El Capitan 10.11 and, just to complicate things, the main iMac was running from an external drive since the internal hard drive had previously died (the external drive was initially a clone of the dead HD pre-failure). I decided to rebuild the iMac with an internal SSD and an internal 3TB HD (setup with 3 partitions) along with bumping the RAM up. The main iMac is just used by myself. The laptop is used by myself and Georgie. The second iMac is to be Georgie’s main desktop but also has my account so I can use it as a backup machine in the event of a failure of the main iMac. I realise that my situation does not reflect yours ;o) However, the fact that each machine had TM backups and Superduper clones and the new main iMac now has 4 logical internal drives (SSD & 3 HD partitions) and I need TM and Superduper clones of everything going forward means I have had to think about migrations, backups and clones a fair bit! For the main iMac, for example, Time machine backs up all 4 drives in one backup but the SuperDuper clones have to be done on a disk-by-disk basis (though one partition is still empty – earmarked for a media libray disk). For what it is worth, a few of my thoughts are: Have a clear strategy of what you intend to use each machine and disk for and what is the main/secondary/tertiary backup methods: For example all three of our computers will continue to be used albeit with different primary uses (mine, Georgie’s and joint travel computer) – your approach may be different if you intend to just migrate to the new computer and retire the old one than if you intend to keep using the laptop as well as the new mac mini (since you say the laptop is unreliable you are possibly just going to retire it?) We use both DropBox and OneDrive to keep most of our user data in synch between machines – so the cloud accounts become the de-facto main off-site backup for this but, since I would not rely on these alone, the clones and TM backups are there “to be sure, to be sure”. The clones are a “snapshot” of the drives as at the last clone time. To me the main purpose is to have an immediate recovery in the event of a drive failure. To recover anything that has changed since the last clone I have the TM backup, although for the cloud accounts they will update automatically – so I just use the TM backups for file by file (or folder by folder) recovery. I limit my SSD to the System and application files and a bare admin user folder – so the clone is really all I need to re-instate this. I have my main user folder on an internal partition and rely mainly on the cloud accounts but with clone & TM backups. You need to have your own strategy for what is on the internal SSD and the external HD and the methods for backup, recovery and migration of the two drives would probably be different. Time Machine seems to creates separate backups for different computers and recognises the actual computer rather than the HD – so for various computers my TM back-ups have continued across disk re-partitions and HD replacements – so your new computer will automatically get a new TM backup file. Personally, I would start with a new clean HD for this (fairly large drives are really very cheap nowadays). Although you could use your old TM file when migrating to the new computer, post migration TM will just use the new TM backup corresponding to the new computer – I’m pretty that the old TM backups back through time, that are stored in the old TM backup file, will only be shown by TM on the old machine. However, when plugged into the new machine, the old TM backups can be accessed through the finder - and individual archived versions of files or folders can be accessed and copied to retrieve them. Different people tend to have different methods & preferences as to how to use Time machine. Personally, I tend to find its main value for me is to access older versions of files/documents/ preference settings – particularly when something stuffs up and I need to revert to the pre stuff-up version! For complete restoration or migration I would tend to go to my clones – but that’s just me ;o) Hmmm, not sure how much of the above is relevant/helpful to your situation – so, maybe, my take away would be: I presume the reason you are not migrating directly from the laptop is that the machine is now unreliable and can’t be trusted as the migration source? Depending on how recent it is, you might consider your SuperDuper backup as the migration source. Once migrated, I would recommend using a new, clean, HD as TM backup drive for the new machine. The old TM backup drive could continue to be used for TM backup for the old laptop if you still use it, if not it can still be used as an archive source (via Finder, not TM) of old files from the laptop until you are happy the contents are no longer useful at which point it can be erased/reformatted as a new disk. For the new computer, make sure you have a clear plan for what will be on the SSD and what will be on an external drive. Formulate your comprehensive back-up strategy (TM, clone, cloud/other off-site) to suit this plan. HTH Cheers Neil -- Neil R. Houghton Albany, Western Australia Tel: +61 8 9841 6063 Email: n...@possumology.com From: <wamug.org.au-wamug-boun...@lists.wamug.org.au> on behalf of Alan Smith <sma...@iinet.net.au> Reply-To: WAMUG <wamug@wamug.org.au> Date: Wednesday, 08 May 2019 at 12:25 To: WAMUG <wamug@wamug.org.au> Subject: Re: System migration to new computer Thanks for your thoughts Peter (C) Current idea is now to remove the data drive via Time Machine preferences and run a few days of plain MBA SSD backups. The HOPE is that Migration Assistant would allow a TM backup from a specified date and therefore copy just the latest 150GB or whatever. May even try adding a third TM backup drive to create a “pure” SSD source for initial migration with a short date range, while the other TM drives are temporarily removed. Then, as Peter (H) said, try it! Cheers Alan On 8 May 2019, at 9:34 am, petercr...@westnet.com.au wrote: Hi Peter and Alan. This is a conundrum I have yet to encounter but I had wondered how I would do it if I ever had to. I have a similar environment where I have an MBP (256GB SSD) and a 2TB external drive holding Photos library, iTunes library and an assortment of other foldered items. My external drive is INCLUDED in the back up to Time Capsule. I also periodically do a CCC backup of both the MBP and External drive too for some added protection. What I have observed, during a trial I did a few months back, is when using the recovery process from the TM backup, if I was to try and recover a file that was resident on the external drive, then I must have the external drive attached to the MBP for it to be reinstated back to. Conversely, if I were to not have the external drive attached to my MBP, when I try to do a recovery of a file that was on the external drive, then the ability to see the image of the backed up external drive to select a file to recover is not made available. It follows therefore (I think) that if I was to try and recover the entire external drive using TM, then I would need to have that drive attached in the destination of where I was trying to recover it to. A suggestion to think about before implementing anything. If you were to use Migration Assistant to restore the backup of the on-board SSD content ONLY from the TM backup to the Mac Mini (with the external drive NOT attached to the Mac Mini), then it would follow that only the on-board SSD backed up content from the MBA would be recovered onto the Mac Mini 256GB SSD. If you then were to attach the external drive to the Mac Mini, then you are back in the same place you were previously - the Mac Mini is a clone of the Macbook Air and the external drive is now moved over to the Mac Mini. Another of my observations is that the first time that Time Machine does a backup of this new configuration, it will create a new backup of the ENTIRE SSD + the ENTIRE external drive, even though the content is the very same content. This has the undesirable effect of bloating the backup file and you may run out of space on it. Maybe there is a clever way to make it recognise it's backing up stuff it has already backed up, so only does an incremental backup, ie only a back up of what has changed. I think TM is pretty clever but without knowing exactly how it will behave in these circumstances, it's difficult to know what you'll end up with. But as Peter indicates, the worst that can happen is you have to clear it off the Mac Mini and start again. Another thing with TM is to be extremely patient. Extremely patient. Extremely patient. Regards Pete. ----- Original Message ----- From: wamug@wamug.org.au To: <wamug@wamug.org.au> Cc: Sent: Wed, 8 May 2019 08:03:17 +0800 Subject: Re: System migration to new computer > On 8 May 2019, at 6:34 am, Alan Smith <sma...@iinet.net.au> wrote: > > What is the best way to migrate complete data and settings from an unreliable > 2012 MacBook Air to a still-in-the-box 2018 Mac mini? Both macs have internal > 256 GB SSD. There are Time Machine and Super Duper backups. I will be the > technical assistant for my brother in law who owns the macs. > > I proposed to use Migration Assistant from Time Machine but this has a > complication. The MBA has a 1TB external data drive using symbolic links. > Time Machine includes the data drive in its backups to two disks, internal > and external on Time Capsule. > > Can Migration Assistant use Time Machine in this case? If expedient the > external TM backup disk can be removed and a new backup made of just the MBA > SSD on the TC internal disk. > > The MBA has bad days when it fails then restarts several times. This has been > happening for some months. A direct migration from MBA to Mini would not seem > to be feasible. > > Your help would be appreciated. > > Regards > Alan > > > Logic tells me that all the files archived by Time Machine end up in the same Time Machine folder on the TM drive, regardless of origin, but I agree the restoration process through Migration assistant could well be unpredictable. My first insticnt would be just to try it. The worst that could happen is that the files base on the MBA’s internal drive will be restored to their correct locations, but those originating from the external drive might be ignored (worst case scenario). It’s also possible that MA, not finding a matching location on the new 2018 Mac, might just create one and proceed regardless (best case scnario). I think that if you wind up with the worst case scenario, you’d just have to spend some time manually dragging over the folders and/or files which were ignored. In the best case scenario, there’d be nothing else to do. Dunno. I haven’t been faced with this situation before so I can’t report from experience unfortunately. Hopefully, there might be others on the list who are more enlightened. Kind regards, Peter Hinchliffe Apwin Computer Services FileMaker Pro Solutions Developer Perth, Western Australia Phone (618) 9332 6482 Mob 0403 046 948 -------------------------------------------------------------------- Mac because I prefer it -- Windows because I have to. -- The WA Macintosh User Group Mailing List -- Archives - <http://www.wamug.org.au/mailinglist/archives.shtml> Guidelines - <http://www.wamug.org.au/mailinglist/guidelines.shtml> Settings & Unsubscribe - <http://lists.wamug.org.au/listinfo/wamug.org.au-wamug> -- The WA Macintosh User Group Mailing List -- Archives - <http://www.wamug.org.au/mailinglist/archives.shtml> Guidelines - <http://www.wamug.org.au/mailinglist/guidelines.shtml> Settings & Unsubscribe - <http://lists.wamug.org.au/listinfo/wamug.org.au-wamug> -- The WA Macintosh User Group Mailing List -- Archives - Guidelines - Settings & Unsubscribe -
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