synching 2 computers together.

[madduck]

just got an air, have a macbook that's been my road warrior for the last 4 yrs. have a time cap at home that i synch the book with. (improper grammar, i know.) my and my wife's computer are backed up on the time cap. i haven't turned on my air yet and am doing some research before i fire it up.

1.) is it possible to synch my new air with the time cap and get my macbook on to my air?

2.) if yes, is the usb the quickest way to download the data since there is no fire wire port on the air?

thanks much for any help and suggestions.

cheers, jason

 

[Hawkeye16]

I was recently in the same boat. I do not know of a way to get a different computer to recognize a different computer's backup (but I have not tried cause I am all about fresh starts).

If you have wireless, you can enable sharing and just open one computer as an attached network drive on the other computer and then just drag and drop like you would with a USB or something.

If you have large files just copy a bunch of them and let it run over night. My 5G network seemed a little slower than USB, but both seemed slow when copying 100GB

 

[cahillj]

Use Time Machine

Wife with new MBA. Bought the Ethernet to USB adapter. Ethernet from old MBP (10.7) to new MBA. Used Mac OS X Lion Migration Assistant to migrate to new Mac. After 10 hours of copying (180GB) hung with 10% to go.... 3 times.... Gave up... known problem... google it
Then tried Time Machine backup (=time cap?) restore to new MBA hardwired to TM drive with Ethernet. Took 10 hours and worked perfectly, it's a replica! except some licenses didn't transfer- which is only to be expected. Wife happy

Here's a good page, look at the Time Machine Migration
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4889?viewlocale=en_US&locale=en_US

AND before you do this create and use an admin account for the migration DON'T create an a/c with the same name as the one you want to copy from the old Mac as Migration assistant will complain.
Then migrate your proper a/c from the old Mac, then delete the temporary a/c or keep it and drop your a/c to standard user - which is more secure.
I need sleep, if you need more help/clarification I'll check in tomorrow.

still a newbie after 10 years