TM drive and Migration Assistant

[french frank]

No.o.o.o.o.o.o !!!!! [... ]

Totally frazzled. Another grilling from Lloyds Central Fraud Squad. Apology, and I'm told they've now authorised payment, though it's still sitting in my account.

Your instructions have unnerved me (not your fault - I mean too complicated!). I have now contacted my Geeks (have no fear - it is a long-established local company that handles the IT for several well-known businesses). It will cost.

[Anastasius]

Fair enough. Just make sure that they don't go into 'automatic' mode. Transferring stuff over from one computer is easy. From more than one, trickier.

[french frank]

Fair enough. Just make sure that they don't go into 'automatic' mode. Transferring stuff over from one computer is easy. From more than one, trickier.

What I can do is discuss it with them. I really want to understand what they're doing and why. Initially, they transferred the data from the 2008 machine to the 2013 and it was faultless. I meant not to work on the old machine again, but I did Idiot!

[Dave2002]

Totally frazzled. Another grilling from Lloyds Central Fraud Squad. Apology, and I'm told they've now authorised payment, though it's still sitting in my account.

Your instructions have unnerved me (not your fault - I mean too complicated!). I have now contacted my Geeks (have no fear - it is a long-established local company that handles the IT for several well-known businesses). It will cost.

Sorry about your bank problems.

Anastasius' instructions are pretty good. The only thing I would comment on is the line about programs "either working or not". Actually I think it is possible for a program to work, but have unwanted, undesired, or unexpected behaviour. Broadly speaking though programs will either work, or not, in a rough sort of way. As you don't seem to be wanting to try that this seems academic anyway. Hope you don't get charged too much by the geeks. You do need a backup strategy.

[french frank]

You do need a backup strategy.

What do you mean by 'a strategy'? I have back-ups for both machines.

[Anastasius]

I think he means for your new machine. What hard drive will you use for backing it up? If your existing backup drives are large enough then you could divide (partition) them to give you effectively two backup drives. One will remain and contain the last backup of your old Mac and the other will be the destination for your backups from your new Mac.

Your geeks might he a long-established business but if you get the newly- established Noobie then beware! But it looks like you're going to ask them to explain what they're going to do and so hopefully armed with some of the caveats we've given you here it should give them pause for thought before rushing in.

[Dave2002]

What do you mean by 'a strategy'? I have back-ups for both machines.

You need a backup strategy for all the machines you actively use which have important (to you) data and applications.

It isn't good enough simply to have hard drives or SSDs or flash drives etc. with copies of files if you don't know how to recover the files. Chances are that as a private individual, who does some work relying on computers, you don't have anything absolutely vital - your world probably won't cave in if you lose the lot, though you might feel sad if you lost photos, videos etc. of people you know and like, and your latest work project might go down the pan.

Some people and many businesses rely on the data on their computers, and it would be a major disruption and possible loss if that data became damaged, compromised or lost. People who worry about this do a risk assessment, and maybe have backup copies stored in other locations, and a periodic schedule (automatic or manual) for doing backups, and also verifying that recovery is possible. Often backups done manually by a diary schedule don't actually get done - "oh I forgot - this week - last week - last month .... didn't seem to matter."

It's OK to say my backup strategy is "I have no strategy", but then that (hopefully) means you've thought about this, and are accepting the risks.

When did you last try to recover a file or folder using Time Machine, for example, to check that the process works? You are using TM and one or more backup tools to clone, but have you actually tested that they work? Some people miss out that step, and then wonder later why their data is not recoverable when they really need to recover the data. Maybe the data is recoverable, but they don't know how to use the tools they have to recover it.

How often do you spin up the drives? Some drives seem to become inoperable if unused for a long while. A new machine may not have drivers which will work with older drives. At least think about the issues, and how addressing them, or not, will affect you.

[french frank]

You need a backup strategy for all the machines you actively use which have important (to you) data and applications. [ … ]

When did you last try to recover a file or folder using Time Machine, for example, to check that the process works?

Probably about three weeks ago.

You are using TM and one or more backup tools to clone, but have you actually tested that they work?

Yes, Anastasius kindly explained to me how to do it a while back.

How often do you spin up the drives? Some drives seem to become inoperable if unused for a long while. A new machine may not have drivers which will work with older drives. At least think about the issues, and how addressing them, or not, will affect you.

That is good advice.

Though in one sense, you are absolutely right: I don't have a great deal which is of life or death importance. If the whole lot went up in flames, I would call the fire brigade and start a new life, with plenty of time to sort things out with real people.

[Delivery of the new computer is delayed by one day and they now propose to deliver it on the day I told them not to because I will be out all day. And this morning a new charge has appeared on my debit card account for Applecare which was included in the first amount. A life wandering in the hills of Scotland seems very alluring.]

[Dave2002]

I don't have a great deal which is of life or death importance. If the whole lot went up in flames, I would call the fire brigade and start a new life, with plenty of time to sort things out with real people.

[Delivery of the new computer is delayed by one day and they now propose to deliver it on the day I told them not to because I will be out all day. And this morning a new charge has appeared on my debit card account for Applecare which was included in the first amount. A life wandering in the hills of Scotland seems very alluring.]

Some people put their faith in iCloud or similar. Personally I don't, but if you either don't care, or have very little that you're bothered about sharing with the world, then that could be helpful.

Before anyone comes back and says that the iCloud (or similar) is safe, and everything is encrypted, I'll respond "the providers would say that, wouldn't they!". Mind you, using Google or similar search engines even if you don't knowingly attempt to save anything in the cloud does present an opportunity for some to misuse your details.

Good luck with the delivery, and I hope the bank situation gets sorted out.

[Anastasius]

I would never use iCloud as my main backup. It's great for storing the odd photo etc but to try and restore a 200GB disk via the Internet is crazy. I have no issue with iCloud security and am please to say that my tin hat is firmly in the cupboard.

[Dave2002]

I would never use iCloud as my main backup. It's great for storing the odd photo etc but to try and restore a 200GB disk via the Internet is crazy. I have no issue with iCloud security and am please to say that my tin hat is firmly in the cupboard.

Some people do use clouds for backup, and some seemingly reputable IT consultants actually recommend clouds for various reasons. However some legal experts do point out major problems, and/or potential risks. If your only copy of a 200Gbyte disc, was in a cloud, you would restore from it, though I agree it would be something to avoid if at all possible.

[Anastasius]

Some people do use clouds for backup, and some seemingly reputable IT consultants actually recommend clouds for various reasons. However some legal experts do point out major problems, and/or potential risks. If your only copy of a 200Gbyte disc, was in a cloud, you would restore from it, though I agree it would be something to avoid if at all possible.

I just worked out how long 200GB would take to download on our broadband connection. Three days...24 hours worth each day. 72 hours !! Plus a massive hit on paying for the additional bandwidth.

[Dave2002]

I just worked out how long 200GB would take to download on our broadband connection. Three days...24 hours worth each day. 72 hours !! Plus a massive hit on paying for the additional bandwidth.

I think we might get it down to 14 hours. That would assume the server served out faster than the link, and that the links ran at full speed. That's using BT Infinity - fibre.

I hope I did the calculations right. At the max Infinity rate, the timings could be half my estimates.

I don't know what would happen on our tariff, which is unlimited, but there is a "fair use" proviso. It might work without extra charge, but with considerable throttling back.

Commercial organisations - if they wanted to use clouds - could probably buy into considerably more powerful servers and download links.

You are right that it does show up the limitations of using clouds. That might persuade some people to put more resources into local physical backup storage. However if some of the stored material was made up of music files, then recovery from a cloud service could perhaps be spread over weeks, rather than days - with an immediate download of each file if "needed" to be played, otherwise just spread the downloads over a significantly extended period. Not everyone will want all the material backed up to be recovered in one fell swoop.

[Anastasius]

Have you taken delivery of it yet, FF ?

[french frank]

Have you taken delivery of it yet, FF ?

Yes, it came yesterday. Looking beautiful but so far I've only powered it up and and wondered whether I was supposed to choose American English or Canadian English. At the moment, I'm doing some housekeeping on the other two. No point in transferring data files which I don't want.