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Carbon Copy Cloner - Users Thread - Yosemite to Mojave to Big Sur - and after

Carbon Copy Cloner 5.1.27-b1 — This is a pre-release update of CCC

  • New
    This build adds (again) support for System volume cloning on Apple Silicon Macs running macOS Big Sur 11.3 and later. Please bear in mind that this does not mean CCC will automatically and immediately start copying the System volume on your Apple Silicon Mac. In most cases, you really should not sacrifice your current backup just to copy the System volume. If you already installed macOS onto your backup, leave it as it is. If you want to clone your System volume, erase your current backup and reselect it in CCC's Destination selector. One additional caveat: you should not rely on being able to clone the System back to the internal storage of an Apple Silicon Mac — the APFS filesystem consistently kernel panics the Mac at the end of the restore procedure. CCC now presents these caveats more proactively.
  • Fixed
    Fixed an issue in which the task filter was inaccessible when the destination is the current startup disk.
  • Fixed
    Fixed a crasher in CCC's User Agent while checking for updates on macOS Mojave.

The days of incremental system volume backups are still not quite there, but you can certainly make bootable backups.
 
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Realityck said:
Its a lot quicker with comparisons during backup. The upgrade process should be available May 18.
Click to expand...
Mike has delivered year after year with CCC. And even though I am now using Arq as my primary backup, I will probably upgrade CCC anyway to support him. I haven't had to pay for any updates in several years so., I don't mind this turn.
 
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Apple_Robert said:
After being used to the GUI of CCC v5 for so long, ver 6 beta is taking a little getting used to.
Click to expand...

One little GUI bug is that there is a very useful options dropdown button in the Dashboard at top right. It is "hidden" because after a machine boot, it is black on dark blue:

Screenshot 2021-05-07 at 15.53.26.png


When you click on it it gives many useful options which I had missed, and once clicked it stays white until the next reboot. Mike Bombich says it will be fixed next beta.
 
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Mike Boreham said:
One little GUI bug is that there is a very useful options dropdown button in the Dashboard at top right. It is "hidden" because after a machine boot, it is black on dark blue:

View attachment 1773349

When you click on it it gives many useful options which I had missed, and once clicked it stays white until the next reboot. Mike Bombich says it will be fixed next beta.
Click to expand...
Thanks for the post. It is very hard to see as is. I missed it serveral times.
 
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If I use CCC to create a bootable backup drive on an external HD, then boot my MBP from this backup, should CCC be able to make a copy of my data **from** that MBP or can the bootable backup only be used to copy data **to** the MBP? Running latest Big Sur and hoping to clone a 512 GB MBP SSD to a 1 TB external HD. Thanks.

MAY 26 EDIT: I didn’t use CCC exactly as described above, but I bought a 2 TB external HD, installed Big Sur on it, booted my ailing MBP from it, and then CCC copied the entire MBP (450 GB), except for six photos that had been corrupted, like a champ. (Trying to copy large folders via Finder repeatedly failed with “device error.”) Awesome app.
 
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dark_mode.jpg


6.0 changes from b5

  • Changed
    final: The source/destination dismissal buttons now have opaque backgrounds to better deal with a variety of volume icons.
  • Changed
    final: Made several VoiceOver description and traffic flow improvements.
  • Changed
    final: Suppressed some error messages to match CCC v5 handling.
  • Changed
    final: Dropbox placeholder files are no longer excluded from the backup task. Also fixed the size calculations for these items when viewed via the Task Filter or Compare windows.
  • Changed
    final: We'll now more effectively avoid bailing and claiming that the destination is stalled in cases where destination enumeration is simply taking a very long time, e.g. in cases where we have 40,000 files in a folder on an SMB volume.
  • Changed
    final: Added the "Protect root-level items on the destination" setting to the SafetyNet menu in the Destination selector contextual menu.
  • Changed
    final: Fixed an issue in which tasks configured to run when files are modified on the source would fail to resume monitoring after leaving and re-entering a time limit.
  • Changed
    final: The CCC Dashboard preference to share task started/finished notifications with Notification Center is now enabled by default to match the CCC v5 default behavior.
 
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Weaselboy said:
Yep... thanks. Just upgraded.

9to5mac.com

Carbon Copy Cloner for Mac overhauled with 20x speed boost, Dark Mode interface, and more - 9to5Mac

Popular advanced backup software for Mac, Carbon Copy Cloner is out with a major update today. Version 6 comes with...
9to5mac.com 9to5mac.com

9t05 has an article up.
Click to expand...
I like many of the new features especially Backup Audit and Advanced File Verification. I used both of those during the last few weeks of the beta and they were rock solid.

Between CCC and Arq, I have all the bases covered. No need for TM any more.
 
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I just re-upped as well, though I'm not sure why anymore. **admittedly I am out of the loop** & need to catch up, but if we can't have bootable backups anymore, most people probably don't need anything beyond TM, right?
 
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Apple_Robert said:
Between CCC and Arq, I have all the bases covered. No need for TM any more.
Click to expand...
You could say:
Between TM and Arq, I have all the bases covered. No need for CCC any more.

Bootable backups (allowing near instant recovery) was, as far I am concerned, CCC's prime purpose. With that gone/going away, TM covers most bases.

And, if I want complex backup rules, Chronosync is more powerful than CCC.

Edit: I don't want to get into a which is best war, but CCC does seem to have lost its prime selling point.
 
gilby101 said:
You could say:
Between TM and Arq, I have all the bases covered. No need for CCC any more.

Bootable backups (allowing near instant recovery) was, as far I am concerned, CCC's prime purpose. With that gone/going away, TM covers most bases.

And, if I want complex backup rules, Chronosync is more powerful than CCC.
Click to expand...
Fair point.

For me, I find CCC to be more reliable, faster and able to make custom schedules, versus TM, which I found to be unreliable, doesn't validate backups, doesn't offer custom schedule and isn't as fast as CCC, not that speed is paramount.
 
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Apple_Robert said:
For me, I find CCC to be more reliable, faster and able to make custom schedules, versus TM, which I found to be unreliable, doesn't validate backups, doesn't offer custom schedule and isn't as fast as CCC TM, not that speed is paramount.
Click to expand...
I agree, those are all good reasons to use CCC over TM, though I have always found TM reliable.
 
gilby101 said:
Bootable backups (allowing near instant recovery) was, as far I am concerned, CCC's prime purpose.
Click to expand...
gilby101 said:
but CCC does seem to have lost its prime selling point.
Click to expand...

Just to be clear CCC v6 can still make bootable backups, but this is not the default "Standard Backup" which is Data only. Click again on the destination window to access the Legacy Bootable Backup Assistant (LBBA). Search "Bootable" in CCC documentation for more info and other ways to make the clone bootable.

I believe CCC will carry on being able to make bootable clones as long as Apple allows it, but it has become too complex and is too uncertain to be the default CCC mode, so the option is somewhat hidden in version 6. I don't believe Superduper will fare any better.

This quote from the CCC Documentation explains the change of direction.

"Copying Apple's system is now an Apple-proprietary endeavor; we can only offer "best effort" support for making an external bootable device on macOS Big Sur. We also do not generally recommend that users attempt to make their backups bootable — you can restore all of your documents, compatible applications, and settings from a standard CCC backup without the extra effort involved in establishing and maintaining a bootable device.

In the past, a bootable backup was an indispensable troubleshooting device that even novice users could rely upon in case their production startup disk failed. The reliability of Apple's External Boot solution has waned in the past several years, however, and the situation has grown starkly worse on the new Apple Silicon platform. Apple Silicon Macs will not start up (at all) if the internal storage is damaged or otherwise incapacitated, so there is very little value, if any, to maintaining a bootable rescue device for those Macs.

It has also grown increasingly difficult to make a copy of the operating system. Starting in macOS Big Sur (11.0), the system resides on a cryptographically sealed "Signed System Volume"(link is external) that can only be copied by an Apple-proprietary utility. That utility is very one-dimensional; choosing to copy the system requires that we sacrifice other backup features, e.g. we cannot copy the system and retain versioned backups of your data. Due to these changes and the limitations of Apple's new "Apple Silicon" platform, creating an external bootable device is not only less approachable for novice users, it's also less likely to serve as a reliable troubleshooting device."
 
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