8 ms·

>Our company has a strict "NO T2" policy, Can I ask why? I don't see the downside.

by jki275 6y ago

j-pb 6y ago
With a T2 chip you can no longer use Disk Cloning as a viable means to make backups, because there are ID's stored in the new APFS that have to match the ID of the T2 chip. It sometimes somewhat works, but it's an invitation to get burned. I've talked with various seniority levels on apples tech support team and they all recommended against it, because they themselves know that it can bring the system into undefined states. So how to do backups then? Apple recommends the Os X Migration Assistant. But that tool is so broken that it sometimes takes multiple migrations to transfer all the data, and even then you won't get things like financial applications which dig themselves deep into system files. Again I've talked to many people at Apple tech support, and they've all reached the conclusion that Migration Assistant can't be trusted 100%. Having a computer that we can't upgrade, or replace in a failure scenario is a no-go.
- jki275 6y ago
  I guess my first comment would be that cloning disks isn't a viable backup strategy. It hasn't been for a long time, especially since you don't have the ability to swap internal disks anyway. Apple provides time machine, which should give you a good backup capability. Also, I'm not convinced the T2 chip is the problem here. I think an incorrect corporate backup workflow and deployment strategy is the problem.
  - j-pb 6y ago
    Now you need to explain, how is that not a viable backup strategy? And with the utmost respect, if you seriously recommend time machine, for anything besides a quick "oops didn't mean to delete that", then you can't have used/deployed it in anger. With a 40Gbit Thunderbolt SSD you can theoretically restore an internal PCIE Drive in 1.5 Minutes. No internal drive access needed, if it boots into target disk mode you're good. Compare that with days for the Time Machine case, because it has to move all the tiny little files, and recreate a file system tree. And even then you're not guaranteed to be good, because a restore will use the Os X migration Assistant too, which, as mentioned before, has a tendency to just. not. work. TM is an unreliable technological nightmare. It could have worked if apple had bought ZFS, but since that fell through due to licensing, they had to rely on a hot mess of folder HARD-Links to try to build some kind of snapshotting file system. Even with APFS you're not 100% good, because APFS is an extremely young file system with plenty of bugs, remember that Disk eating APFS Os X Upgrade. Combine that with Programs that manage taxes and are written BASIC with no idea on how to behave on a modern operating system, yeah no thanks. I'd rather have that 1.5 minute repair time instead of waiting days for multiple iterations of the Migration Assistant, only then having to reinstall all the software that got broken in the process. What does "incorrect corporate backup workflow and deployment strategy" even mean. We're two guys completely in charge of IT. I wish we had Linux or Windows, at least there is some form of "Deployments". With Macs, it's all manual labour, because any thing remotely resembling automation, gets discontinued or API-broken in the next release. The best you can do on a Mac in terms of reproducible deployment is set it up once, and copy the entire disk wherever you go.
    - jki275 6y ago
      You're apparently buried in a use case that isn't really modernizable it seems. Windows isn't going to help you either, cloning disks in that ecosystem is a royal pain as well. They often simply don't boot properly and require quite a bit of work to make that workflow possible (been there...) What I generally recommend to people who have to run software that's 20+ years old is to stuff that software into a VM and then you can use VM tools to keep images that work. OSX can be run in a vm on Mac hosts using vmware fusion and that might be a safer option for you. I think either way you go, you're going to wind up running something unsupported for whatever software package you're using that's causing your headaches. But again, this has nothing to do with the T2 chip. You've got other issues to deal with.
      - j-pb 6y ago
        This has nothing to do with our "exotic use case" which is "being an advertisement company that uses mac and photoshop, with the occasional accountant and management machine." This is EXACTLY the use case Apple advertises its machines for. This is also new software like photoshop, and various font management tools. You also didn't address TM or Backup reliability, nor TM backup restore time which is simply limited by the realities of computer hardware. It's completely the T2's, APFS and Apples fault if simple posix operations like cloning block devices break. Also you couldn't provide a single backup solution that Apple support actually recommends. Because they full well know how broken TM and Migration assistant is. But I guess they're gonna get away with their bulls* as long as there are fans who defend them no matter what.
        jki275 6y ago
        Have a nice life as an MS customer. I think you'll find it's not quite so rosy as you believe on that side of the fence.
        j-pb 6y ago
        Yeah Microsoft is Shit, but Apple is worse right now. At least they don't have people arguing for their products just for arguing sake. Have a nice life as an Apple fanboy.

>Our company has a strict "NO T2" policy, Can I ask why? I don't see the downside.

by jki275 6y ago

>Our company has a strict "NO T2" policy, Can I ask why? I don't see the downside.

j-pb 6y ago

With a T2 chip you can no longer use Disk Cloning as a viable means to make backups, because there are ID's stored in the new APFS that have to match the ID of the T2 chip. It sometimes somewhat works, but it's an invitation to get burned. I've talked with various seniority levels on apples tech support team and they all recommended against it, because they themselves know that it can bring the system into undefined states. So how to do backups then? Apple recommends the Os X Migration Assistant. But that tool is so broken that it sometimes takes multiple migrations to transfer all the data, and even then you won't get things like financial applications which dig themselves deep into system files. Again I've talked to many people at Apple tech support, and they've all reached the conclusion that Migration Assistant can't be trusted 100%. Having a computer that we can't upgrade, or replace in a failure scenario is a no-go.

jki275 6y ago
I guess my first comment would be that cloning disks isn't a viable backup strategy. It hasn't been for a long time, especially since you don't have the ability to swap internal disks anyway. Apple provides time machine, which should give you a good backup capability. Also, I'm not convinced the T2 chip is the problem here. I think an incorrect corporate backup workflow and deployment strategy is the problem.
- j-pb 6y ago
  Now you need to explain, how is that not a viable backup strategy? And with the utmost respect, if you seriously recommend time machine, for anything besides a quick "oops didn't mean to delete that", then you can't have used/deployed it in anger. With a 40Gbit Thunderbolt SSD you can theoretically restore an internal PCIE Drive in 1.5 Minutes. No internal drive access needed, if it boots into target disk mode you're good. Compare that with days for the Time Machine case, because it has to move all the tiny little files, and recreate a file system tree. And even then you're not guaranteed to be good, because a restore will use the Os X migration Assistant too, which, as mentioned before, has a tendency to just. not. work. TM is an unreliable technological nightmare. It could have worked if apple had bought ZFS, but since that fell through due to licensing, they had to rely on a hot mess of folder HARD-Links to try to build some kind of snapshotting file system. Even with APFS you're not 100% good, because APFS is an extremely young file system with plenty of bugs, remember that Disk eating APFS Os X Upgrade. Combine that with Programs that manage taxes and are written BASIC with no idea on how to behave on a modern operating system, yeah no thanks. I'd rather have that 1.5 minute repair time instead of waiting days for multiple iterations of the Migration Assistant, only then having to reinstall all the software that got broken in the process. What does "incorrect corporate backup workflow and deployment strategy" even mean. We're two guys completely in charge of IT. I wish we had Linux or Windows, at least there is some form of "Deployments". With Macs, it's all manual labour, because any thing remotely resembling automation, gets discontinued or API-broken in the next release. The best you can do on a Mac in terms of reproducible deployment is set it up once, and copy the entire disk wherever you go.
  - jki275 6y ago
    You're apparently buried in a use case that isn't really modernizable it seems. Windows isn't going to help you either, cloning disks in that ecosystem is a royal pain as well. They often simply don't boot properly and require quite a bit of work to make that workflow possible (been there...) What I generally recommend to people who have to run software that's 20+ years old is to stuff that software into a VM and then you can use VM tools to keep images that work. OSX can be run in a vm on Mac hosts using vmware fusion and that might be a safer option for you. I think either way you go, you're going to wind up running something unsupported for whatever software package you're using that's causing your headaches. But again, this has nothing to do with the T2 chip. You've got other issues to deal with.
    - j-pb 6y ago
      This has nothing to do with our "exotic use case" which is "being an advertisement company that uses mac and photoshop, with the occasional accountant and management machine." This is EXACTLY the use case Apple advertises its machines for. This is also new software like photoshop, and various font management tools. You also didn't address TM or Backup reliability, nor TM backup restore time which is simply limited by the realities of computer hardware. It's completely the T2's, APFS and Apples fault if simple posix operations like cloning block devices break. Also you couldn't provide a single backup solution that Apple support actually recommends. Because they full well know how broken TM and Migration assistant is. But I guess they're gonna get away with their bulls* as long as there are fans who defend them no matter what.
      - jki275 6y ago
        Have a nice life as an MS customer. I think you'll find it's not quite so rosy as you believe on that side of the fence.
        j-pb 6y ago
        Yeah Microsoft is Shit, but Apple is worse right now. At least they don't have people arguing for their products just for arguing sake. Have a nice life as an Apple fanboy.