A few questions about Carbon Copy Cloner!

[harrisonjr98]

Hello there! Hoping to get an answer about a couple questions I have with CCC. I plan to migrate to it to use as my backup solution. I have long just made a literal drag-and-drop copy of my most important external drives to a hard drive every quarter or so as "backup," but I've decided that I owe my precious data a little more due dilligence than that!

I have a couple of very simple needs (by backup standards at least)- I'm just trying to back up a couple of external SSDs to a single, larger external HDD. I do not necessarily need to backup boot volumes - I have a time machine disk for that which is fine for me, but I understand that CCC can offer bootable backups which is cool, and I may switch my boot drive backup from Time Machine for that.

Anyways, my main setup - I have 2 Samsung T5 2TB drives, one contains my music collection and the other my own music and photography projects. Both are currently formatted as exFAT - I debated biting the bullet and switching them to APFS and then just using Time Machine, but I use them with a Windows machine quite often and like the flexibility anyway - occasionally I want to be able to have a friend plug in and grab a project or whatever. So Time Machine is off the table, hence me researching and stumbling upon CCC! It seems CCC's headline feature is cloning your boot volume in a way that makes it - well, bootable. That's cool and all but it makes me wonder whether the goals I have in mind (incremental scheduled backup of one exFAT external drive to another) line up with CCC's design intentions.

So to recap:

• I want to back up two exFAT, GUID external SSDs to a single large HDD for simple on-site redundancy.
• I really am not concerned with version history more than a week back or so, if that. Is this kind of thing commonly customizable in software like CCC? Would love to use an HDD that's essentially the same size as my two SSDs together, because I already have one lying around!
• I don't want any chance of my software solution messing with my live drives - even having read-only permissions would be great. Maybe that's just my paranoia, but the more "idiot-proof" the GUI the better.
• Hoping to format my backup HDD as exFAT, GUID like the drives that are being backed up. But... can I back up exFAT drives to an APFS volume with CCC? Is there any issue with that in general? Another option I was thinking of was to just get a big 8TB or so external and volume part of it as my Time Machine and then part of it as my CCC backup for my SSDs. Not imperative though.
• I need foolproof M1 compatibility because I'm using an Apple Silicon machine as my daily driver. The more a backup service seems to have embraced it and is confident in their software running on it, the better.

Thanks in advance for any guidance you guys can provide

 

[KaliYoni]

Since you seem to be stuck in the weeds at the moment, I have some higher level thoughts that might help you narrow down your choices.

• Is anything you want to back up sensitive, confidential, mission critical, or irreplaceable? If so, cloud storage might not be the best choice.
• What monetary value do you place on the data you want to back up? For example, a professional photographer might be able to justify a higher level of spending on backups than a hobbyist photographer.
• How much time and effort do you want to devote to maintaining your backup plan and setup?

Now, personally, I have been a CCC user for a long time. I like both the product and the developer. If you look at Bombich's website, it's pretty easy to see that there is a strong commitment to quality and customer support. However, given you don't want bootable backups, maybe you should do the simplest thing: buy two or three additional drives and just rotate drag copying your primary drives to them. Benefits: easy, no dependence on cloud vendors, no worries about Internet connectivity, and you maintain complete control of your data. Plus the probability of all your backup drives failing simultaneously is low.

 

[harrisonjr98]

Since you seem to be stuck in the weeds at the moment, I have some higher level thoughts that might help you narrow down your choices.

• Is anything you want to back up sensitive, confidential, mission critical, or irreplaceable? If so, cloud storage might not be the best choice.
• What monetary value do you place on the data you want to back up? For example, a professional photographer might be able to justify a higher level of spending on backups than a hobbyist photographer.
• How much time and effort do you want to devote to maintaining your backup plan and setup?

Hmmm, I may have miscommunicated at some point on my original post. I have been looking at Backblaze as a cloud option, but I'm really just as content to handle offsite by dropping a drive at my folks' house every time I visit for the holidays or whatever. Not super worried about that "disaster" level being completely up to date at all times.

re: replicability, etc.

• It's not replaceable information really, but I wouldn't be in financial ruin or anything if I lost it. I'd be extraordinarily demotivated, hence searching for a robust backup solution!
• My ~200k song music library occupies much of one the two Samsung drives, and has been very carefully tagged and managed for 15 years or so. I'd consider it my most prized digital possession.

re: monetary value

• This is all in reference to my personal machine, so hobbyist photo/music production and collection of media.

re: time and effort

• Hoping for turn-key, frankly, other than physically moving a drive to a different location once a year or so for offsite. It certainly appears that with modern technology, you can automate something like what I'm trying to do quite easily.

However, given you don't want bootable backups, maybe you should do the simplest thing: buy two or three additional drives and just rotate drag copying your primary drives to them. Easy, no dependence on cloud vendors, no worries about Internet connectivity, you maintain complete control of your data, and the probability of all your backup drives failing at once is low.

Well, this is sort of what I'm doing right now and hoping to move away from. As I collect more data over the years, the need for incremental instead of full drive copy becomes glaring. Every quarter or so I drag copy, which often takes overnight for ~4tb onto a spinning drive.

 

[KaliYoni]

I'd say if the benefits of off-site storage and a set-and-forget setup are the most important to you, a cloud service might be a good choice given the nature of the data.

 

[harrisonjr98]

I'd say if the benefits of off-site storage and a set-and-forget setup are the most important to you, a cloud service might be a good choice given the nature of the data.

You know, I had a whole paragraph in my original post about "should I just bite the bullet and pay $6 a month for backblaze to forget about all of this?" but I deleted it lol. You may be right though. I have pretty decent faith in the live drives given they're SSDs, but of course you just never know. Backblaze shipping a drive in the event of a failure would be a pain, but not the end of the world.

 

[KaliYoni]

You know, I had a whole paragraph in my original post about "should I just bite the bullet and pay $6 a month for backblaze to forget about all of this?" but I deleted it lol. You may be right though. I have pretty decent faith in the live drives given they're SSDs, but of course you just never know. Backblaze shipping a drive in the event of a failure would be a pain, but not the end of the world.

And given a 4TB desktop HD is ~$90 now, a HD-based strategy would cost you ~$200 to set up for each primary drive. Then assuming the drives carry a 2-year warranty, you might have to spend $100 every couple of years to replace one of the drives for maximum safety. Backblaze, on the other hand, will be $72/year at the price you quoted. So from a pure finance standpoint, Backblaze seems better (as long as you have fast, reliable Internet).

 

[harrisonjr98]

And given a 4TB desktop HD is ~$90 now, a HD-based strategy would cost you ~$200 to set up for each primary drive. Then assuming the drives carry a 2-year warranty, you might have to spend $100 every couple of years to replace one of the drives for maximum safety. Backblaze, on the other hand, will be $72/year at the price you quoted. So from a pure finance standpoint, Backblaze seems better (as long as you have fast, reliable Internet).

I get about 50 megs up and down, so not blazing (heh) and the initial upload could take days potentially but the incremental nature should make it fine after that. Maybe I could convince one of my Gigabit friends to have a sleepover at his place lol. You're definitely making me reconsider - I love the idea of Backblaze being almost entirely hands off, but there if I ever need it.

 

[TrulsZK]

Hi I am using CCC for backing up none bootable drives, both startup drive and other drives, similar to your setup.



“I want to back up two exFAT, GUID external SSDs to a single large HDD for simple on-site redundancy.”



No problem. Remember to check off “Protect root-level items” in the CCC task. And make sure the folders on the root level on other SSDs are unique. (Otherwise the backup Task fo the second drive will delete the first backup as it thinks that data has been deleted/modified by the user between the Tasks run)



https://bombich.com/kb/ccc5/advanced-settings



“I really am not concerned with version history more than a week back or so, if that. Is this kind of thing commonly customizable in software like CCC? Would love to use an HDD that's essentially the same size as my two SSDs together, because I already have one lying around!”



If the external backup HDD is an APFS formatted drive you can use APFS Snapshots, you will get one every time the Task runs, very similar to Tine Machine.



https://bombich.com/kb/ccc5/leveraging-snapshots-on-apfs-volumes



Alternatively you can use the legacy _CCC SafetyNet folder. This is a folder on the root of the backup drive, this folder contains older/deleted files.



https://bombich.com/kb/ccc5/frequently-asked-questions-about-carbon-copy-cloner-safetynet



Both option have customisable settings and auto delete the oldest when the drive gets full



https://bombich.com/kb/ccc5/automated-maintenance-ccc-safetynet-folder



“I don't want any chance of my software solution messing with my live drives - even having read-only permissions would be great. Maybe that's just my paranoia, but the more "idiot-proof" the GUI the better.”



Have never done anything like that, personally I am just careful to set the task correct and keep at least one more backup (source + 2 backup disks)



“Hoping to format my backup HDD as exFAT, GUID like the drives that are being backed up. But... can I back up exFAT drives to an APFS volume with CCC? Is there any issue with that in general? Another option I was thinking of was to just get a big 8TB or so external and volume part of it as my Time Machine and then part of it as my CCC backup for my SSDs. Not imperative though.”



Yes you can backup exFAT drives to an APFS volume as long as the file can be copied to the drive.



“I need foolproof M1 compatibility because I'm using an Apple Silicon machine as my daily driver. The more a backup service seems to have embraced it and is confident in their software running on it, the better.”



There is currently an issue to CCC in regards to Apple Silicone and clone the bootable part of bootable backup.



https://bombich.com/kb/ccc5/macos-big-sur-known-issues



Copy of a non-bootable drive startup drive and another drive have no problem.



Hope this helps

TrulsZK

 

[harrisonjr98]

No problem. Remember to check off “Protect root-level items” in the CCC task. And make sure the folders on the root level on other SSDs are unique. (Otherwise the backup Task fo the second drive will delete the first backup as it thinks that data has been deleted/modified by the user between the Tasks run)

Sorry for extreme delay in my response. Thanks for responding to my post! I understand all you said except for the portion I quoted above. I did notice when backing up that it tried to "protect" a root level folder that I had changed the name of between backups by copying the entire thing over again, lol.

 

[TrulsZK]

Sorry for extreme delay in my response. Thanks for responding to my post! I understand all you said except for the portion I quoted above. I did notice when backing up that it tried to "protect" a root level folder that I had changed the name of between backups by copying the entire thing over again, lol.

“I did notice when backing up that it tried to "protect" a root level folder that I had changed the name of between backups by copying the entire thing over again, lol.”

Yes that is correct behaviour for this option. CCC will not Delete/Modify Root level folders where the name does not exist on the source.

Also when making large Organisational changes, like renaming folders the data will be re-copied. You can reduce this by making the same changes on your backup before running the task.

What I suggested checking this is if you point to separate drives to the same Destination, otherwise when you run the first Task for the first drive everything will copy, however when the second task runs with the same Destination Volume it will think your data has changed after the first task runs. CCC will delete/archive the data copied in the first Task as it thinks the data is wrong, when compared to the second Task, the end result will only be the data on the second Drive.

You can read more about this here https://bombich.com/kb/ccc5/advanced-settings


When you want to backup two hard drives to one large backup drive you can either use the “Protect root-level items” as I suggested and select the large backup drive as Destination for both tasks.

Or you might want to just run a Folder backup as the destination. on the large drive. And uncheck Protect Root Level Items.

For example create two folders on the large backup drive named “exFAT GUID external SSD number 1” and “exFAT GUID external SSD number 2”
Then change the task Destination to the folder “exFAT GUID external SSD number 1” source keep as the Source SSD.
Repeat with the other task for the other drive and select the folder “exFAT GUID external SSD number 2” as Destination.

This way CCC will treat all rules and settings to within the folder “exFAT GUID external SSD number 1” on the large backup drive, and will never consider any files outside the folder.
You can read more about Folder Backup here, https://bombich.com/kb/ccc5/folder-folder-backups
but in your case select the entire Volume SSD as Source but Folder “exFAT GUID external SSD number 1” as Destination.

 

[harrisonjr98]

“I did notice when backing up that it tried to "protect" a root level folder that I had changed the name of between backups by copying the entire thing over again, lol.”

Yes that is correct behaviour for this option. CCC will not Delete/Modify Root level folders where the name does not exist on the source.

Also whe nmaking large Orgaisational changes, like renaming folders the data

What I suggested checking this is if you point to separate drives to the same Destination, otherwise when you run the first Task for the first drive everything will copy, however when the second task runs with the same Destination Volume it will think your data has changed after the first task runs. CCC will delete/archive the data copied in the first Task as it thinks the data is wrong, when compared to the second Task, the end result will only be the data on the second Drive.

You can read more about this here https://bombich.com/kb/ccc5/advanced-settings


When you want to backup two hard drives to one large backup drive you can either use the “Protect root-level items” as I suggested and select the large backup drive as Destination for both tasks.

Or you might want to just run a Folder backup as the destination. on the large drive. And uncheck Protect Root Level Items.

For example create two folders on the large backup drive named “exFAT GUID external SSD number 1” and “exFAT GUID external SSD number 2”
Then change the task Destination to the folder “exFAT GUID external SSD number 1” source keep as the Source SSD.
Repeat with the other task for the other drive and select the folder “exFAT GUID external SSD number 2” as Destination.

This way CCC will treat all rules and settings to within the folder “exFAT GUID external SSD number 1” on the large backup drive, and will never consider any files outside the folder.
You can read more about Folder Backup here, https://bombich.com/kb/ccc5/folder-folder-backups
but in your case select the entire Volume SSD as Source but Folder “exFAT GUID external SSD number 1” as Destination.

Ah now I get what you mean! I was thinking of doing two distinct volumes on the destination drive for each of the two drives, but using root level folders is much simpler! Thanks for the idea!