I have purchased an almost matching MacBook Pro Retina (late 2013) to my first. From a specs perspective, one is .2 GHZ slower than the other, but hardware matches otherwise. I bought the second one to keep as a ‘hot spare’ when I go to gigs, just in case.
All that being said, which is the better of these two approaches in terms of ‘matching’ the configuration between these two as close as possible.
Install everything on one of the two units and get it all configured exactly how I want it and THEN backup using timemachine and restore to the second unit --OR–
Install all audio software, libraries, etc… matching on these two units
I think it really does not matter that much which of these two methods you choose. As far as GP is concerned - it only needs to have the exact same plugins on both machines and the audio interface should support the number of inputs you use. Other than that everything should just work.
One thing that may influence your decision is if and where you keep your sample libraries. I have mine on an external drive that is duplicated and the spare is always with me.
If you do this - then it may be easier to do time machine as you will not have to configure and re-configure the plugins after you install them and also save some time because you will not have to reinstall the samples.
My sense is that restoring from Time Machine is most likely the easier option, but can’t be certain really.
You will have to register all licenses on the new machine regardless of the method you use.
@djogon , thanks for the reply. This is the answer I was looking for. I think it would be easier to build it all on one and restore it to the other for the initial work, and then manage a specific process moving forward to keep the two synched.