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Discussion on: Migrating to a New Mac for Programmers

 
rhymes profile image
rhymes

You already have a backup in this scenario so you just have to restore to the new computer. No zipping time.

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brandonweiss profile image
Brandon Weiss

Right, I get what you’re saying, but I don’t understand why? Why would restoring from a Time Machine backup obviate the need to zip up the code folder? Why would restoring from a Time Machine backup happen more quickly than restoring from another Mac?

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rhymes profile image
rhymes

Zipping and unzipping also takes time, my current "dev" folder is 8 GB, around 425 thousand files.

Restoring from TM might take less time because you don't have the time you spend zipping and unzipping a giant folder.

Your post is about migrating from another Mac, I suggested that if someone already has a backup of that Mac, attaching the backup to the new machine might take less time, given that you don't just have only the "dev" folder, but at least your entire $HOME if you want everything to work correctly.

So, in your scenario you still have to use migration assistant to copy the files minus the dev folder which will be transfered zipped. So you add the time to transfer everything except the dev folder, the time to zip the dev folder in the first place and the time to unzip it in the second computer.

I was just proposing that in some scenarios leaving the dev folder unzipped and let TM restore that it might take more or less the same time, that's it :)

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brandonweiss profile image
Brandon Weiss • Edited

OK, I think I see where the confusion is—I thought you were saying that there was something special you knew about Time Machine backups that allowed them to somehow be migrated/restored faster.

Migrating from a Mac and migrating from a Time Machine backup (assuming the backup is on the same type of hard drive as the Mac) are effectively equivalent. They should take the exact same amount of time. In my case, that was at least 20+ hours because of the overhead of doing a file-level copy on so many files.

My dev folder is ~9 GB and ~340,000 files. It took 15 minutes to zip it and ~3 minutes to unzip it.

With a zipped dev folder, migrating from another Mac took 1 hour and 45 minutes. That means it definitely doesn’t make sense to migrate using Time Machine. It’s not even close… the time it takes to zip and unzip the dev folder is tiny compared to how much time you save during the migration.

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rhymes profile image
rhymes

Ok got it. My experience of a full restore from a TM backup is of a few hours so I never had to consider a plan B. I'll keep that in mind if I have to

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brandonweiss profile image
Brandon Weiss

👍🏼 Yeah, I’ve heard wildly different numbers on how long migrations take. I know some programmers for who it only takes a few hours and I know other programmers like myself for who it takes a whole day. 🤷🏼‍♂️