Will everything be EXACTLY same after TM-restore?

[swealpha]

Hey!

If I take a timemachine backup of this macbook (MacOS High Sierra) and 2 minutes after I wipe the disk.

Now, when restoring, will everything be exactly the same? 100%?
Or will i need to type in my old passwords, my old edits in system files?
If i put a file in the system folder, will it be there?


I just try to figure out if this TM-restore thing is 100% restore or just "here is all your apps and settings, yes put in the old serial numbers and some passwords".


Thank you for your understanding.

 

[satcomer]

I never used for reinstall! I used the tactic of fresh install, use the same .Mac account and then use Migration Assistant to transfer music, date saved email and settings especially in the N1-2 transition! Other wise I use the serial number especially of big program]mds to get either Universal or pure silicon programs to get the updated versions cheaper!

 

[MarkC426]

It would be much better (especially with High Sierra) to use Carbon Copy Cloner or SuperDuper to clone your drive.
This will then be an exact copy.

 

[swealpha]

It would be much better (especially with High Sierra) to use Carbon Copy Cloner of SuperDuper to clone your drive.
This will then be an exact copy.

Oh, why is that. Could you explain please? Thank you.

 

[MarkC426]

You would create a clone of your Mac drive to an external drive.
This would be bootable.
You can then boot from the external, which would be identical to your Mac drive.
You would then re-clone it back to your Mac from the external drive.

With newer OS's and Apple Silicon, it is not as straight forward to clone.

 

[swealpha]

You would create a clone of your Mac drive to an external drive.
This would be bootable.
You can then boot from the external, which would be identical to your Mac drive.
You would then re-clone it back to your Mac from the external drive.

With newer OS's and Apple Silicon, it is not as straight forward to clone.

Hmm, thanks but i was thinking of using 2 partitions on the backup disk.

Internal hdd is very small. 256GB.
Backup hdd is 4TB.

So i was thinking of using 2 partitions on the backup disk, one for TM and one for older backup files that I want to save, but no need to have in the workstation.

I dont really know how CCC is working. Maybe it works anyways.

 

[MarkC426]

You can do it with TimeMachine, but you would have to re-install the OS first, so it's more long winded.

Restore your Mac from a backup – Apple Support (UK)

Restore files from your backup.

support.apple.com

I have never used this method personally.
What is your reason for restoring, is your Mac playing up?

Also it is not wise to have a TM backup and data on the same drive.
The data will not be backed up anywhere, if the 4TB drive dies.

 

[swealpha]

You can do it with TimeMachine, but you would have to re-install the OS first, so it's more long winded.

Restore your Mac from a backup – Apple Support (UK)

Restore files from your backup.

support.apple.com

I have never used this method personally.
What is your reason for restoring, is your Mac playing up?

Also it is not wise to have a TM backup and data on the same drive.
The data will not be backed up anywhere, if the 4TB drive dies.

I was thinking of having more then 1 TM backup-disk, that way I can be more safe. Only issue is to sync all this disks. Gaaaah. ;(

In fact everything started with me trying to find a good backup of everything on another location.
I was thinking of the CLOUD but cant find any good software that feels safe enough that has both encryption and sync to cloud.

 

[MarkC426]

My setup is different as I have a MacPro.
All internal disks are backed up to an external TM drive.
All internal disks are cloned to external disks.