If I backup to a shared drive on the network (connected to my mac mini on the network), can I unplug the drive from my mac mini and plug it into my macbook pro and try to restore the entire system from there?
You should be able to or you can restore over the network.
Because I heard that backups that are made over a network drive are stored as a sparsebundle or something like that and it's not stored the same as an external drive plugged into my macbook directly. So I wasn't sure if I'm able to restore it by plugging it in.
See the green box. The backup are inside the sparse bundle.
http://pondini.org/TM/Works.html
Trying mounting the sparse bundle first.
So technically I should be able to connect the drive, mount the sparse bundle, and do a full restore?
I think so, but if you are a little unsure about trying it, what until someone else chimes in.
aapl.crox wrote:
If I backup to a shared drive on the network (connected to my mac mini on the network), can I unplug the drive from my mac mini and plug it into my macbook pro and try to restore the entire system from there?
Yes, that should work. The full system restore should see the backups, although there are a few reports it didn't. See Time Machine - Frequently Asked Question #14 for details.
Can I restore locally if backed up remotely with TM?
