Selling/ Purchasing/ Time Machine

[lifeguard90]

Hey everyone, my question/ process is regarding my macbook pro / future iMac. Long story short I am selling my current 2011 high end customized 15" mbp on ebay, just listed it minutes ago. ( I don't know if I can post that item link on the forum or not? )

Anyway, or if ebay fails, i will sell it to Gazelle, for a decent price but not as high as my ebay hopes. Regardless, if it sells on ebay, then I will have to get rid of it faster. With Gazelle, their quotes are for 30days, so in early May I can try it again and see if I can get the same or near same quote to extend into June. Hoping iMacs get refreshed in May or June, yes reports said June but Apple can do what they want. I'm sure well get more clues as time goes on/ WWDC media banner is made public.

Regardless, I do not need a laptop because I will be done with school, plus I have an iphone4 and we have a home basic iMac I can use for the time being if I have to ship it out. I know I can buy a current model but the refresh is right around the corner, plus I read from users of the current high end that for the games I want they are not completely satisfied with the specs. So I can wait 30-70 days.


So with all that said, the time machine concern I have is that I indeed have a external drive with a full back up etc. but do you guys have any other tips or ideas on how to safeguard "everything" presuming I lose this laptop prior to iMac arrival. double back up on hdd, data website? I want to be as sure as I can that the external drive backup will be just fine when I go to click restore or drag and drop what I want. aka NO chance to loose my stuff.

* side note, presuming the next iMac will too have ssd/hdd combo, how would one do a time machine restore due to two storage devices?


Thanks everyone, appreciate it.

 

[flatfoot]

I usually proceed in the following way when upgrading to another system:

1. Wait for a new billing cycle to begin on my credit card.
2. Buy the new system using my credit card.
3. Migrate my data directly from the old system to the new one, or using my Time Machine backup after a fresh OS install on the new system.
4. Have ~25 days to get rid of the old system and receive the payment.

Maybe that's an option for you, too.

EDIT: About the side note:
You could use Carbon Copy Cloner to clone the boot drive from one Mac to the other and manually copy the latest Time Machine data drive backup to the new data drive.

 

[Georgio]

Assuming the time machine backups are ok, then when you boot up the new machine the first time you have the option to migrate from the time machine back-up; You end up with a perfect copy of your old machine but on the new machine.
I've done all options over the years when upgrading to a new machine and the time machine option is the simplest and least hassle.

 

[All Taken]

OP be careful, Carbon Copy Cloner is the most amazing solution.... if you're copying data to the same model Mac.

It will work but things like USB Kexts in OSX will throw up errors as the new hardware is different, time machine on the other hand will do the trick.

 

[lifeguard90]

Thans for the replies , I think I will stick with the TimeMachine choice because my guess is that ebay sale will be higher than gazelle, thus I need to sell it sooner.

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I will be moving from a macbook pro 2011 to a 2012 iMac actually.

OP be careful, Carbon Copy Cloner is the most amazing solution.... if you're copying data to the same model Mac.

It will work but things like USB Kexts in OSX will throw up errors as the new hardware is different, time machine on the other hand will do the trick.

 

[All Taken]

Thans for the replies , I think I will stick with the TimeMachine choice because my guess is that ebay sale will be higher than gazelle, thus I need to sell it sooner.

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I will be moving from a macbook pro 2011 to a 2012 iMac actually.

That was my point going from a cloned Macbook Pro 2011 to a 2012 iMac will give you grief, it happens with any clone between families of Mac.

 

[talmy]

You can clone the drive and then restore programs and data using Migration Assistant, which will not copy system files (that may be incompatible). You would get the same result using a TimeMachine drive, of course, assuming it works and is complete. (I've always been skeptical of TimeMachine, and in any case have it disabled for Virtual Machine images and Aperture libraries.)