Does Time Machine back up *everything*?

[applemax]

Hi

I need to transfer data from one Mac to another via an external hard drive. I'm planning on using Time Machine and the 'Migrate a Mac' tool. Does Time Machine 'clone' the entire Mac?

Thanks

 

[spinnerlys]

It doesn't clone your HDD per se, as making the external bootable, it just creates a full copy in one folder with many subfolders resembling the structure of your Mac.

CarbonCopyCloner would be a better choice to really clone your Mac's HDD to an external HDD.

You can also use Target Disk Mode if you can.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Target_Disk_Mode

 

[applemax]

It doesn't clone your HDD per se, as making the external bootable, it just creates a full copy in one folder with many subfolders resembling the structure of your Mac.

CarbonCopyCloner would be a better choice to really clone your Mac's HDD to an external HDD.

You can also use Target Disk Mode if you can.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Target_Disk_Mode

I thought I could just make a TM backup of Mac 1 and use Migration Assistant on Mac 2 and recover - does that recover *everything*? It doesn't need to be bootable, by the way - just a one-off data migration.

Thanks

 

[spinnerlys]

I thought I could just make a TM backup of Mac 1 and use Migration Assistant on Mac 2 and recover - does that recover *everything*? It doesn't need to be bootable, by the way - just a one-off data migration.

Thanks

Depending on the size of the backup, it might take longer to backup via TM than to make a clone via CCC.

But if those two Macs are in the same room and both have Firewire (or Gigabit Ethernet), you can skip the copying to an external HDD, and just use Target Disk Mode (or networking them) and the Migration Assistant.

 

[miles01110]

I thought I could just make a TM backup of Mac 1 and use Migration Assistant on Mac 2 and recover - does that recover *everything*? It doesn't need to be bootable, by the way - just a one-off data migration.

Yes, you can do this. It will be fine.

 

[applemax]

Depending on the size of the backup, it might take longer to backup via TM than to make a clone via CCC.

But if those two Macs are in the same room and both have Firewire (or Gigabit Ethernet), you can skip the copying to an external HDD, and just use Target Disk Mode (or networking them) and the Migration Assistant.

That's the issue - one of them is being taken back to the shop and is getting replaced, so they won't be in the same room. CarbonCopyCloner and SuperDuper look pretty complex, so if TM does the same thing, I'd rather do that!

 

[spinnerlys]

That's the issue - one of them is being taken back to the shop and is getting replaced, so they won't be in the same room. CarbonCopyCloner and SuperDuper look pretty complex, so if TM does the same thing, I'd rather do that!

It's okay. I just wanna sell CCC to all the people I encounter,

One last thing: CCC is not complex. You open it, select the source drive, select the target drive, press Clone and enter your password and you are done.
Then you just have to wait for the copy process to finish.

 

[applemax]

So can anyone confirm if TM does everything? I mean everything from music and photos in iLife to iTunes artwork to which boxes I have ticked in preference panes!

 

[spinnerlys]

So can anyone confirm if TM does everything? I mean everything from music and photos in iLife to iTunes artwork to which boxes I have ticked in preference panes!

Everything, especially music and photos and all your preferences and other data.
Be sure to not exclude something in the TM preferences.

 

[applemax]

Everything, especially music and photos and all your preferences and other data.
Be sure to not exclude something in the TM preferences.

Great, thanks for your help!

 

[HyperX13]

Hi

I need to transfer data from one Mac to another via an external hard drive. I'm planning on using Time Machine and the 'Migrate a Mac' tool. Does Time Machine 'clone' the entire Mac?

Thanks

i just migrated my old mac pro to new mac pro. I just booted off the snow leopard dvd, said to restore from time machine and it worked like a charm.

I even went a step further. I created a RAID 0 with 2 256 gig SSD drives, and used time machine to restore my old mac to new mac.