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Word of Warning: Migration Assistant From Time Capsule

I

ItsWelshy

macrumors regular
Original poster
Jul 31, 2012
219
92
If you've bought a rMBP, and are thinking of buying the Thunderbolt Ethernet adapter with the specific use of speeding up your restore from Time Capsule to your new machine...

.. Don't bother, Migration Assistant isn't Thunderbolt compatible.
 
That does not make any sense. When you plug the adapter into the thunder bolt port and the other end into a network cable do you get a network connection?

If so where does the incompatibility come in?
 
edk99 said:
That does not make any sense. When you plug the adapter into the thunder bolt port and the other end into a network cable do you get a network connection?

If so where does the incompatibility come in?
Click to expand...

You get a connection, but you don't get any improvement on speed.

Sorry, not the best way to describe it!
 
ItsWelshy said:
You get a connection, but you don't get any improvement on speed.

Sorry, not the best way to describe it!
Click to expand...

It is because the hard drive inside the Time Capsule isn't nearly fast enough to even saturate a 100mb connection.
 
You are probably limited by the throughput the Time Capsule rather than WiFi or Ethernet.
 
I think the OP is referring to Migration Assistant from a Time Capsule specifically.
 
geoffreak said:
I think the OP is referring to Migration Assistant from a Time Capsule specifically.
Click to expand...

Yep. :)

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jbzcar said:
It is faster.

This thread is rather pointless.
Click to expand...

Sorry, we're not all IT experts and I would have found this thread handy...

It would have stopped me shelling out 25 pounds for something that doesn't speed up my Time Machine restore.
 
Could you be experiencing the same thing I posted about over here? Thunderbolt gbe adapter backing up to/from a sparse bundle on my iMac is significantly slower than using wifi. So strange as regular file transfers over thunderbolt saturate the interface no problem.

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/1406813/
 
ItsWelshy said:
Sorry, we're not all IT experts and I would have found this thread handy...

It would have stopped me shelling out 25 pounds for something that doesn't speed up my Time Machine restore.
Click to expand...

Well, it's pretty much common knowledge that mechanical hard drives are slow and won't benefit much from Thunderbolt. Think about it, physical hard drive platters can only spin so fast. Now you know.

The Thunderbolt Ethernet adapter is to use an Ethernet connection with your Mac. Obviously...
 
SInce the Thunderbolt/Firewire adapter wasn't available, and my old MBP doesn't have a Thunderbolt port, my options were rather limited for using Migration Assistant to populate my new rMBP. Fortunately I planned ahead and got the Thunderbolt/Ethernet adapter with the new Mac.

I used a Ethernet connection via Gigabit switch to my newish Time Capsule. Everything went just fine. I didn't keep track of the transfer time, but it was under 8 hours to move over 250GB of stuff. I was gone, so I don't know the exact time.

To create a new Time Capsule backup I went ahead and just did it with a wireless connection. I didn't keep track of that one either, but it ran overnight (less than 12 hours).

The new rMBP gets backed up to the TC wirelessly. I've not kept track of how long they take, but it's nothing abnormal.

Just now I did some testing. I duped a 4.6 GB file and ran a backup. Wirelessly it took Time Machine 16 minutes to run.

I changed the file's name, hooked up the ethernet cable, turned off the rMBP's WiFi, and fired up Time Machine. It took 7 minutes to finish the backup.

For grins, since I just got my Thunderbolt/Firewire adapter, I moved the same file to an external drive via FW800. It took 3 minutes, 20 seconds for the file copy.

I hooked up a USB 3.0 drive and moved the same file....1 minute, 15 seconds.

If anyone wants to send me a Thunderbolt drive, I'd be more than happy to test the speed on it too. ;)

YMMV.

:apple:
 
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