Carbon Copy Cloner invisible files?

[machenryr]

I've been using CCC for years. I have set it up to back up three drives. But I guess it saves backups of the backups. Apparently these are "snapshots." I have a source SSD, full at 1.99 TB. This can't be. I copied the entire contents another large 15 TB drive. There's only 280 GB on it. I want to erase the source disc and copy the copy to it, but it makes me nervous. I have 1.7 TB of snap shots. Can I just disable snapshots and it will get rid of them or do I have to reformat and copy over again? I hope this makes sense! Thanks!

 

[organicCPU]

But I guess it saves backups of the backups.

Usually CCC doesn't make backups of _CCC SafetyNet folders (if that is what you call backups from backups). If you want to copy these backup histories, you could activate this hidden preference in Terminal:

"/Applications/Carbon Copy Cloner.app/Contents/MacOS/ccc" -g dontExcludeSafetyNet bool YES

If copying _CCC SafetyNet backup histories, you should disable the SafetyNet setting (choose "SafetyNet Off" from the SafetyNet popup menu).

If you're talking about snapshots in context of APFS and SSD backup media, you should see what snapshots are on your backup drive by selecting it in the CCC main window in the volumes section on the lower left side. More on this here:

Leveraging Snapshots on APFS Volumes - Bombich Software

bombich.com

 

[BrianBaughn]

Is "Protect root-level items on the destination" checked for any of the backup tasks?

 

[Fishrrman]

I turned "snapshots" OFF in CCC's preferences.
I don't need 'em.

 

[bombich]

Click "Volumes" in CCC's sidebar, then select your source volume there to see if there are any snapshots on that volume. If there are, simply select them and press the Delete key to remove them. If you don't want CCC to retain snapshots on that volume, flip the "CCC Snapshots" setting to the Off position. We don't usually recommend having snapshot support enabled on the source volume, having that backup history on the destination is usually what people are looking for. If you did want to keep snapshot support enabled on the source (e.g. supposing you're using a destination that doesn't have snapshot support), click the "Customize" button in the lower-right corner of the window to set a custom snapshot retention policy (e.g. to retain a larger amount of free space).