Carbon Copy Cloner broke my SSD - twice!

[joe8232]

Hi all,

This isn't technically a macbook pro question but I thought more people would use ssd's here than in the imac forum.

I currently boot my imac off a crucial m4 256gb ssd connected by thunderbolt through a seagate goflex adapter. I recently purchased a 512gb version of the same drive to replace it. I connected this drive to the imac using usb to sata caddy and formatted it hfs+ using disk utility. I then tried to do a full disc copy using CCC from the 256gb one. After that finished the drive appears to become corrupt and unusable. I tried formatting it in disk utility and it says 'Cannot write to last block of the device'. Windows cannot see it either. Interestingly, disk utility knows it's a 512gb m4 but just cannot do anything with it.

Anyway, I sent it back and they sent another one and exactly the same thing has happened again. So it's gone back again and i'm now waiting for the third one which I am not planning to use CCC with.

Has anyone had any similar problems / have any suggestions? A fresh install isn't the end of the world, just a bit annoying.

 

[justperry]

I find it hard to believe CCC breaks the SSD for the following reasons, CCC is just an Application using Apple's processes like rsync to synchronize a disks, CCC is just a GUI of terminal commands, nothing more.
So, don't blame CCC, blame or Apple or the SSD manufacturer or you might have done something wrong yourself although I doubt this.

 

[Idefix]

Hi all,

This isn't technically a macbook pro question but I thought more people would use ssd's here than in the imac forum.

I currently boot my imac off a crucial m4 256gb ssd connected by thunderbolt through a seagate goflex adapter. I recently purchased a 512gb version of the same drive to replace it. I connected this drive to the imac using usb to sata caddy and formatted it hfs+ using disk utility. I then tried to do a full disc copy using CCC from the 256gb one. After that finished the drive appears to become corrupt and unusable. I tried formatting it in disk utility and it says 'Cannot write to last block of the device'. Windows cannot see it either. Interestingly, disk utility knows it's a 512gb m4 but just cannot do anything with it.

Anyway, I sent it back and they sent another one and exactly the same thing has happened again. So it's gone back again and i'm now waiting for the third one which I am not planning to use CCC with.

Has anyone had any similar problems / have any suggestions? A fresh install isn't the end of the world, just a bit annoying.

SSD is defective. Send it back.

This has nothing to do with Carbon Copy Cloner.

 

[joe8232]

SSD is defective. Send it back.

This has nothing to do with Carbon Copy Cloner.

I really don't think it is though. When I first format it, the drive shows up in the finder as expected. It's only after the carbon copy cloner is carried out. It was also exactly the same with the second drive too. Could it be copying some of the partition information or something from the old drive and overwriting the new one which could cause issues? I don't really know. Oh well, I just thought someone might have a solution.

 

[Orlandoech]

I find it hard to believe CCC breaks the SSD for the following reasons, CCC is just an Application using Apple's processes like rsync to synchronize a disks, CCC is just a GUI of terminal commands, nothing more.
So, don't blame CCC, blame or Apple or the SSD manufacturer or you might have done something wrong yourself although I doubt this.

I agree with you

 

[LS3 Machine]

Hi all,

This isn't technically a macbook pro question but I thought more people would use ssd's here than in the imac forum.

I currently boot my imac off a crucial m4 256gb ssd connected by thunderbolt through a seagate goflex adapter. I recently purchased a 512gb version of the same drive to replace it. I connected this drive to the imac using usb to sata caddy and formatted it hfs+ using disk utility. I then tried to do a full disc copy using CCC from the 256gb one. After that finished the drive appears to become corrupt and unusable. I tried formatting it in disk utility and it says 'Cannot write to last block of the device'. Windows cannot see it either. Interestingly, disk utility knows it's a 512gb m4 but just cannot do anything with it.

Anyway, I sent it back and they sent another one and exactly the same thing has happened again. So it's gone back again and i'm now waiting for the third one which I am not planning to use CCC with.

Has anyone had any similar problems / have any suggestions? A fresh install isn't the end of the world, just a bit annoying.

Sounds like a hardware issue. Something in the caddy may be killing the SSD. Or the USB port.

 

[bombich]

Hi Joe:

I have to agree with the first reply -- CCC just copies files, it can't break the SSD. We've actually seen several reports similar to this, though, there seems to be a common compatibility issue with various SSDs and various Macs. Here are two related discussions from our Help Desk (for background):

Some MacBook Pros can boot from a disk in an enclosure, but not when it is installed internally [http://help.bombich.com/discussions...-everything-works-great-wont-boot-internally]

Some MacBook Pros can boot from a disk in an enclosure, but not when it is installed internally (asks to be reinitialized) [http://help.bombich.com/discussions...le-to-boot-from-cloned-hitachi-hd-internally]

This procedure seems to provide more reliable results for most users:

1. Shut down your Mac
2. Install the new disk inside your Mac and put the original disk in your external enclosure
3. Boot your Mac from the original startup disk in the external enclosure -- hold down the Option key while booting your Mac to get to the startup disk selector screen
4. Re-initialize the new disk (in the partition tab -- reapply the "1 partition" scheme to the disk)
5. Create a Recovery HD on the new disk in CCC's Disk Center
6. Clone your original source volume to the new disk
7. Set the startup disk to the new disk in the Startup Disk preference pane and restart your Mac

Note: Step 4 is very important -- be sure to apply a new partition scheme to the disk, don't just erase the volume. This video indicates how to repartition the disk: http://www.screenr.com/SQM

If you're still having trouble, please post a discussion over at our Help Desk. I don't regularly browse the MacRumors forums, but we're on our Help Desk most days of the week.

Mike

 

[mertisrules]

all this is exactly what I thought. Now I've had a PCIe Mercury Accelsior break 2ice now and OWC says- don't use CCC it will break the drive... and referred me here: http://eshop.macsales.com/tech_center/index.cfm?page=/manuals/mac/clon_data.html

OWC Guide
Cloning Your Data to a New Hard Drive in Mac OS X
For OS X 10.6 and later, cloning is NOT recommended. Rather, you should perform a clean install of OS X and migrate your data using Migration Assistant. For instructions please click here.

 

[CoastalOR]

all this is exactly what I thought. Now I've had a PCIe Mercury Accelsior break 2ice now and OWC says- don't use CCC it will break the drive... and referred me here: http://eshop.macsales.com/tech_center/index.cfm?page=/manuals/mac/clon_data.html
OWC Guide
Cloning Your Data to a New Hard Drive in Mac OS X
For OS X 10.6 and later, cloning is NOT recommended. Rather, you should perform a clean install of OS X and migrate your data using Migration Assistant. For instructions please click here.

Maybe I missed it but I do not see where OWC says "don't use CCC it will break the drive" in the links. It does recommend not cloning the OS to a new drive for OS 10.6 and above.

It looks like the caution against cloning the OS is the possibility of OS corruption and not necessarily "breaking the drive". If the OS gets corrupted you should be able to reinstall the OS, but that does not make the drive inaccessible or unusable.

The recommendation to not clone the OS does not say anything against CCC specifically. CCC is only just one method of cloning.

 

[mertisrules]

I sent over to CCC Help what I was too and got a quick reply from MB himself:
Hi Paul,

OWC started saying things like that when I stopped putting their ads in my software a couple years ago. There's no technical merit to their claims, CCC does nothing more than copy files exactly the way that the Finder would. I'm pretty sick of seeing these comments too, I just emailed Larry O'Connor at OWC to see if he can offer a technical explanation, or have his staff stop saying these things. Thanks for the heads up. In the meantime, I wouldn't avoid using CCC to copy files to or from the SSD, it's not going to harm the device.

Mike

Mike Bombich
Bombich Software, Inc.
[doublepost=1457561058][/doublepost]

Maybe I missed it but I do not see where OWC says "don't use CCC it will break the drive" in the links. It does recommend not cloning the OS to a new drive for OS 10.6 and above.

It looks like the caution against cloning the OS is the possibility of OS corruption and not necessarily "breaking the drive". If the OS gets corrupted you should be able to reinstall the OS, but that does not make the drive inaccessible or unusable.

The recommendation to not clone the OS does not say anything against CCC specifically. CCC is only just one method of cloning.

correct it was not in the link. It's what was told to me when I asked OWC support what more can I do to safe guard my PCIe SSD.

 

[tonino1]

I'm reading this post in 2022 after searching the web because 2 of my SSD drive from different manufacturers are gone dead after backing up with CCC. The first one is Kingston SSD and the second a SanDisk. It's not the iMac ports because I have 6 other SDDDrive connected for photo and video archiving which I do manually and never an issue.
Sandisk is sending me a replacement and planning to use SuperDuper this time.