Mac Mini & MacBook Pro with Identical Libraries - Will Match work?

Hi Guys,
This is the scenario:-
I have a Mac Mini & a MacBook Pro, both machines have identical Music libraries kept in sync using the automatic downloads function within iTunes (I only buy music from iTunes) This is great as I can ensure that anything I download to my Mini is also available on the MBP. However it does not keep the Play Count in sync which would be fantastic if it could also I would like a little more piece of mind when it comes to backing up my library so I am considering iTunes Match.
Question:-
If I enable iTunes match on my MBP and let it do its thing, when I enable it on the Mini will there be any issues I should be concerned about and will it keep both libraries intact and keep the play count in sync accross both machines?
Thanks in advance!

Congratulations, because if you do, indeed purchase only from iTunes and haven't added anything from CD, you are the ideal customer for Match. Your music should all be in the "purchased" category.  This is good for you in several ways:
(1) your first Match session should go pretty quickly.  What bogs things down are numerous tracks that are neither purchased nor matched, thus need to upload.
(2) the number of tracks you have that might get tagged as "ineligible" is probably going to be very low. There is a fix for most ineligible tracks (making an AAC version in iTunes), but it's a hassle you might be able to avoid.
(3) the 25,000 limit applies to everything - except purchased tracks.  So if you had 24,999 purchased tracks and one "match" you could still add 24,999 from CDs if you wanted to in the future. You'd also have access to those purchased tracks in a matter of minutes.  Uploading the same number, well, people are reporting days . . .
Not certain what might happen to your play counts.  I understand some of that gets nulled out for some people, but perhaps in your case it won't be an issue.
Finally, I echo Michael when he suggests you not look at the cloud as a reliable backup.  Even if you were willing to trust that it would always be there for you, there are enough reports of songs being mis-matched that it would be foolish to assume what's in the cloud is really identical to what you have on your Mini and MacBook Pro.

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