How do you handle working with MacMini at home and MacBook on the road? Need advice about choosing my new Mac

Greetings,
I own a glorious MacBook Air M1 8Gb RAM and 256Gb HD, but now I feel it’s time so say it goodbye.

Now I need local space, 1 TB is good.
I’m in doubt whether to buy a new MacBook Air M3 1TB and totally replace the old one, or buy a MacMini M4 1TB for when I work at home, and keep the old MacBook Air for when I’m on the road.

What keeps me on the fence: knowing that I have all the files with me everywhere everytime is reassuring.
I fear to miss some file if I need it and it’s not on my old MacBook (many files would be on the MacMini and not on the MacBook due to storage difference).

On the other side the “hybrid” solution would grant me of a more powerful Mac, and make me save some Euros.

How do you handle such hybrid solution, that is having a main machine at home/office and a secondary machine on the go?

I know there are many variables at play, but I’d like to hear your experience in order to have a bigger vision about it.

Hope it makes sense.

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Don’t miss an active thread: File Syncing - my journey and result.

I personally love having a Desktop. My syncing needs are fulflled by manually moving large files when needed on a big trip. I use iCloud for some small things. When I am away, I am frequently spending time in a location with no WiFi although I can make the effort to go to a library to get some.

I use Backblaze as my “emergency I need that file that I forgot”. Your general question is hard to answer because people’s needs are SO different. On podcasts, I hear a lot about the single computer lifestyle. I write this just to say that there are also Desktop holdouts. And the new MacMini’s (I have an older generation Mac Studio) are attractive. But my Mac Studio is pumped up with LOTS of Ram. For me the vast majoriy of my time is at my Desktop, and I know that when I am there I am getting an optimal experience. My portable can just sit in my backpack.

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I handle this with my own “cloud” on a third Mac (any mini will do) as a server and with Resilio Sync. See this thread Has anyone here rolled their own iCloud on a Synology? which is about using a Synology, also a solution, but I comment about my setup there.

I’m retired but before that I was an I.T. manager. I rarely kept work files on my laptop when traveling beyond home due to the possibility of them being lost or stolen. They stayed on company servers that I could access remotely.

Today my Mac never leaves home and I work/travel with an iPad and iPhone. The majority of the files that I may need are stored on Google Drive. The handful that I choose to keep offline are on my iPhone (and Mac) . My Mac contains a copy of everything online, sensitive files, photos, and an archive of everything that I rarely need but want to keep.

I managed computers for decades so I don’t use a local NAS. I’ve had my fill of checking logs every day and applying security patches.

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Jason Snell recently wrote something interesting about this:

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I was using jump desktop for a while to just do the actual work on the mini. After two years I just paid the extra to get a sufficiently specced MacBook Pro and have a single device.

It’s certainly viable to have two devices, but the price I’ve paid to have just one is imho worth it.

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I use a M1 iMac as my main computer and an iPad for most portable needs. When on the road for longer periods I have an old MBA that’s synced via iCloud to my iMac. Both machines have adequate SSD space for my storage needs.

This is the same as the situation I was in with a 1TB MacBook and 4TB desktop. I ended up selling the 1TB because I found it too frustrating to have to download files from iCloud (I’m often in places with no Wifi like trains/planes for long periods of time). My solution was to have a 4TB desktop and MacBook, which I can only do because my company is paying.

I used Dropbox for years and started my own Synology Setup but after 1 year I‘m back on Dropbox. Synology Sync is great and easy to setup and maintain but we live in a very remote rural area of Germany with just one unreliable ISP with lots of outtages.
Sometimes while on the road I couldn‘t reach my NAS at home for hours at a time. Otherwise the setup would have been ideal for Mac , MacBook, iPad, iPhone. Synology have Apps for all devices and its all in sync if the internet connected to the NAS works.

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I only have one MacBook Pro that suits all needs (1 TB drive and 2 TB iCloud). At my home office I connect it to a 35” wide screen and external keyboard etc. When I’m out I have the MBP, and if I need an extra monitor I have my iPad for that.

It’s quite nice to have all the storage at one place.

If you want two devices, shouldn’t iCloud be enough to keep them both synced?

/$0.02

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Thank you all for your insightful advice!

After reflecting on your experiences, I’ve decided to purchase a new MacBook Air with 1TB of storage as my primary and only machine.

While strategies like BackBlaze and iCloud are excellent, I prefer to have my files readily accessible without needing to download them, especially since I sometimes find myself without reliable Internet. This aligns closely with the experience shared by @Rob_Polding .

Additionally, I’ve been using a similar setup to @carlsson : a MacBook Air connected to a 32” monitor at home, along with a hub for external SSDs.

I’ve decided to invest a bit more and max out the RAM to ensure better performance and future-proofing.

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If you do have two machines, Jump Desktop works great. You always have both computers with you. Of course, you do need to have decent internet access.

If it’s not too late, I recently got an M4 Pro Mini for my desktop (to replace a 2017 27" iMac) and also have a 2020 MacBook Pro (Intel) for the road which still works great. I use Dropbox to keep files in sync, which works great. I like the redundancy of two different machines in case something happens to the laptop while on the road (you never know).

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Having gone through many methods mentioned in this thread, I settled on Synology. :face_with_monocle:

GOALS
• 100% access to all files 100% of the time, from any device w/o space constraints or worry
• Protection (data + physical) in event compromised device (broken/stolen/lost/hacked)
• ZERO third party cloud service
• VPN friendly
• Easy to spin up if new device is added, old device removed
• Automated backup

WORKING SET UP ← All goals met, and (finally) simple.
• Synology NAS
• Resiio Sync on NAS set to 100% sync of primary directory
• Resilio Sync on each other device set to selective sync (any files I move here sync to NAS)
(laptop often at my side (home/away,) iPhone always on me, mini at home, nas at home, one day a second offsite nas backup)

This new way is so simple, works so well.


Backstory

While committed to Synology a few years back, the solution has been a journey (keeping vpn connected, working, access from local and remote, trying different systems (synology apps, 3rd party apps, vpns, tailscale, resilio sync etc) - aways something to tweak and try or fix. Hobbled along but never quite right, always tweaking and trying new options. Then took Resilio Sync to the next level on the NAS to connect the primary target directory as the source on 24/7 sync, devices on selective sync and it has been simple and smooth sailing since.

“The search is over, Resilio Sync was with me all the while.” :laughing:


NOTE: Synology NAS was not cheap. I picked up a DS220+ to try during Amazon Prime and then had to purchase drives to install. Entire setup ran around $500. Paid itself back multiple times since and was a good investment.

Worth noting the Resilio Sync, itself, while a great product, seems to have lost developer attention, somewhat drifting along on its own anymore. Forum is rather dead, doesn’t appear to be in active development…so good to know in advance…and…haven’t found a suitable alternative (ie. syncthing, synology drive etc don’t do the job as well.) Hope Resilio renews interest in Resilio Sync.