2 computers and 1 timemachine backup?

[elavats]

I spend about 1/2 the year in the US and the other half in the EU. Instead of bringing a computer with me when I travel, my plan is to have a computer in each place and just carry an external drive and backed up Time Machine files with me as I go from one place to the other.
For example, I would back up my computer in the EU using Time Machine, travel to the US and update the 2nd machine with the Time Machine backup from the 1st machine. When I go back to the EU, update the EU computer with the files I was using in the US, rinse and repeat.

Here is the dilemma. I bought a new Mac Mini as my 2nd machine, and am using a early 2009 MacBook Pro as my 1st machine. My Mac Mini is running Sierra however the newest OS I can run on my 2009 MBP is El Capitan. My assumption is that I would have to be running the same OS on each computer, but again, that's just my assumption. Since I can't run Sierra on my MBP, I was thinking of loading El Capitan on the Mac Mini so the OS on both computers would be the same.

The idea is clear to me, I hope I was able to explain it adequately so it's clear to you. Is what I'm proposing seem realistic? Is there a better way to do this? I'm open to suggestions.

thanks in advance.

 

[Mlrollin91]

This is iOS, not macOS sub-forum.

With that being said and my experience of TM. It will create one backup for the computer you are using. Then you would have to completely restore to the time machine backup on the other computer. This can take several hours depending on the size. It completely rewrites the OS.

It might be easier to just drag and drop the files that you want to transfer. Or use iCloud Drive.

 

[graley]

This is iOS, not macOS sub-forum.

With that being said and my experience of TM. It will create one backup for the computer you are using. Then you would have to completely restore to the time machine backup on the other computer. This can take several hours depending on the size. It completely rewrites the OS.

It might be easier to just drag and drop the files that you want to transfer. Or use iCloud Drive.

[doublepost=1492163472][/doublepost]Maybe you could just take a hi capacity USB, load all the files that have been changed on machine 1 into a folder and drag them on to machine 2. ??

 

[AppleSmack]

You could run Dropbox and let that keep your two computer's data synced. Just make sure Dropbox has synced up before you shutdown and fly to your other location.

 

[Boneheadxan]

Why not make a bootable OS on an SSD and carry that around. I have a Samsung T3 Windows 10 bootable drive which fires up on all my machines.