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

I spend time between my home and my daughter's place across town.
I've been using CCC to clone my iMac onto an external ssd and boot from it on my daughter's iMac when I stay there.
This has enabled me to continue working without interfering with her setup.
If I'm unable to continue using this method in the future, I might as well sell my 27" iMac, buy a cheap tablet and use that instead. It doesn't have to be an Apple product, cost performance is important to an old fart like me.
 
way77 said:
My HD crashed recently. After Apple store replaced HD they loaded it with Big Sur (I was using Mojave before, trying to keep some 32 bit apps alive). After restoring my data thru Time Machine, my Mac is much slower than before. Today I attempted to create a bootable SSD (Samsung 1TB, using thunderbolt connector) using CCC. It will not show up in startup manager or after using option on startup. I've zapped PRAM and that didn't help either. At this point would it be better to install Big Sur directly on it and copy over data from my Time Machine backup? Any other fixes?
Click to expand...

First off, if you have a T2 mac you will need startup security to allow for external booting. Start up security can be found in recovery under utilities. If you have an old Mojave backup and a Mojave full installer, you could go back yourself.
 
Carbon Copy Cloner 6.0.1 is online to update to

  • Fixed
    Fixed a handful of crashers, and some cases where a task would fail, indicating an exception had occurred in the CloneKitService.
    [*]Fixed
    CCC no longer removes the "has a custom icon" bit from the destination volume's root folder, causing the Finder to not show the icon.
    [*]Changed
    Clicking the "X" widget to dismiss a CCC notification in Notification Center will no longer activate CCC.
    [*]Changed
    Files that fail postflight verification are now automatically tossed onto CCC's "try it again at the end of the task" queue for a second chance. If the secondary copy and verify fails, then we report the error.
    [*]Fixed
    Fixed an issue in which a task that was configured to create a bootable backup would fail, indicating that the destination volume was read-only.
    [*]Changed
    Improved the handling of low-space conditions in cases where SafetyNet or snapshots are enabled on the destination.
    [*]Fixed
    Addressed a memory leak that led to task failure while handling sparse files on APFS volumes (e.g. Dropbox online-only placeholder files were a big driver of this one).
    [*]Fixed
    Addressed a handful of cases where a task would errantly report a "subtask timeout" while working through folders with very large numbers of files (e.g. 150K), despite no actual stall occurring.
    [*]Fixed
    When copying content from a volume that has ownership disabled (especially NAS volumes), the ownership of the items on the destination is now set to the user that created the CCC backup task.
    [*]Fixed
    Addressed an edge case in which CCC would miss some folders when copying from an APFS volume to a non-APFS volume (typically when an iTunes Music folder had a non-ASCII character in its name). Note that if you have a Quick Update task that matches this configuration, CCC 6.0.1 will automatically perform a "standard copy" audit of the destination during the next task event.
    [*]Fixed
    Improved the performance of the dynamic performance chart when moving the CCC window from a retina to non-retina display.
    [*]Changed
    The End User License Agreement, and the preflight and postflight script names now appear correctly in Dark Mode.
    [*]Changed
    Addressed a performance issue that led to a "subtask timeout" at the end of a task that was using the "Reverify files copied by this task" setting.
    [*]Fixed
    Fixed a loop condition that can occur if a destination NAS volume drops offline in the middle of a task and CCC lacks the credentials to remount that volume.
 
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Near the beginning of this thread, a number of posters mentioned that their backup strategy with CCC involved a rotating series of destination drives. For years I have done the same (4 destination drives rotated weekly), but I'm wondering if with APFS that really makes the most sense.

Instead of multiple destination drives, why not use a single destination drive and enable destination snapshots? If the only answer is "redundancy in case the destination drive fails," it seems to me that the answer is to have two different destination drives. For example, 1 CCC /1 TM, or 2 CCC if one doesn't care for TM.

Another advantage of fewer destination drives is that I can keep them mounted and backup more frequently than weekly.

Or am I missing something here, and snapshots don't accomplish the same thing?
 
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camner said:
Near the beginning of this thread, a number of posters mentioned that their backup strategy with CCC involved a rotating series of destination drives. For years I have done the same (4 destination drives rotated weekly), but I'm wondering if with APFS that really makes the most sense.

Instead of multiple destination drives, why not use a single destination drive and enable destination snapshots? If the only answer is "redundancy in case the destination drive fails," it seems to me that the answer is to have two different destination drives. For example, 1 CCC /1 TM, or 2 CCC if one doesn't care for TM.

Another advantage of fewer destination drives is that I can keep them mounted and backup more frequently than weekly.

Or am I missing something here, and snapshots don't accomplish the same thing?
Click to expand...
In regards to backup strategy, I use Arq to back to an external drive as well as 3 different cloud locations (for my M1 MBA). I also use CCC to backup remotely to my Mac mini (for my M1 MBA and 12" MacBook) as well as to an external drive for my M1 MBA.

In my opinion, CCC and Arq are two of the best backup options one can use, in regards to flexibility of size, type, and frequency of backups, as well as speed. And most importantly, both are backed by very responsive developers.
 
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camner said:
Near the beginning of this thread, a number of posters mentioned that their backup strategy with CCC involved a rotating series of destination drives. For years I have done the same (4 destination drives rotated weekly), but I'm wondering if with APFS that really makes the most sense.

Instead of multiple destination drives, why not use a single destination drive and enable destination snapshots? If the only answer is "redundancy in case the destination drive fails," it seems to me that the answer is to have two different destination drives. For example, 1 CCC /1 TM, or 2 CCC if one doesn't care for TM.

Another advantage of fewer destination drives is that I can keep them mounted and backup more frequently than weekly.

Or am I missing something here, and snapshots don't accomplish the same thing?
Click to expand...
Another advantage of rotating sets: when I worked for the Government they had 3 rotating sets of offline storage
that was physically stored in 3 separate places in case of disasters like fire. You might as well store sets in the basement.
;JOOP!
 
GrampaJiiji said:
A very informative article by Glen Fleishman about An M1 Mac Can’t Boot from an External Drive If Its Internal Drive Is Dead
Click to expand...
This is part of the reason, why in CCC v6, the default mode is a Data volume only backup, and bootable backups are not recommended in the CCC documentation, and in the Mike Bombich blog linked in that article

A lot of the Apple sites and jounalists are picking up on this so it is beginning to be reported in many places now. That Glenn Fleishman article is a good overview with useful links, especially the mention of the M1 Mac Take Control book.
 
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camelia said:
Is this version stable?

Any issue with version CCC v6 or should I download CCC v.5 to avoid any headache?

Thanks
Camelia
Click to expand...
I can't remember when CCC ever hinder my backup processes for quite awhile.

Not too long ago I ran into a problem with 6.0-b5 where it was working perfectly with Big Sur, but with Catalina 10.15.7 there were a few files used by CCC that it couldn't copy. Things like that are minor bugs that I figured were detected and passed to the developer. Yep next version it was fixed.

You're not going to have to worry about CCC, it's usually something quirky with MacOS betas or even a official MacOS update that sometimes you need to fallback to a CCC backup. :D
 
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CCC 6.01 has made several good Intel bootable backups for me.

Using the Legacy Boot Assistant seems a little more fiddly than necessary for me but as of Big Sur there's really no choice in the matter.

I rather like the line graph being displayed during backup, it makes me feel a little better seeing those wavy lines during the process. TBQH just a barber pole would do it for me, but the graph feels like it gives it a little more legitmacy somehow.
 
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camner said:
Near the beginning of this thread, a number of posters mentioned that their backup strategy with CCC involved a rotating series of destination drives. For years I have done the same (4 destination drives rotated weekly), but I'm wondering if with APFS that really makes the most sense.

Instead of multiple destination drives, why not use a single destination drive and enable destination snapshots? If the only answer is "redundancy in case the destination drive fails," it seems to me that the answer is to have two different destination drives. For example, 1 CCC /1 TM, or 2 CCC if one doesn't care for TM.

Another advantage of fewer destination drives is that I can keep them mounted and backup more frequently than weekly.

Or am I missing something here, and snapshots don't accomplish the same thing?
Click to expand...

I am still in the "rotating series of destination drives" camp

I back up music and photos - folders to folder on CCC - Saturday on one drive, Wednesday on another and once a week to time capsule.

My theory / and Experience is that I can manually make a big mistake such as deleting a folder with important files (a mouse click error can do this) - and having several back ups can be an easy way to get back on track

I find the snap-shots confusing and complicated - IMHO
 
mikzn said:
I am still in the "rotating series of destination drives" camp

I back up music and photos - folders to folder on CCC - Saturday on one drive, Wednesday on another and once a week to time capsule.

My theory / and Experience is that I can manually make a big mistake such as deleting a folder with important files (a mouse click error can do this) - and having several back ups can be an easy way to get back on track

I find the snap-shots confusing and complicated - IMHO
Click to expand...
I like the way CCC lets you choose; if all utilities were as flexible as CCC .......
And, if a bug is detected, they take action right away.
;JOOP!
 
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I work on the basis that I never want all 3 of my back up drives to be in the same place at the same time.

Time Machine drive is permanently attached. Then my CCC drives are rotated in from a remote location, they are swapped whenever I visit that location.
 
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Hello

I have download ccc-6.0.1.7100.zip to start my 30-days trial

How do I format my External Hard Disk?

  • macOS Catalina 10.15.7 (19H1217)
  • MBP 15" Mid 2014
  • Adata HD720 1TB External
(If you can, please share an screenshot)

Thanks
Camelia
 
camelia said:
Hello

I have download ccc-6.0.1.7100.zip to start my 30-days trial

How do I format my External Hard Disk?

  • macOS Catalina 10.15.7 (19H1217)
  • MBP 15" Mid 2014
  • Adata HD720 1TB External
(If you can, please share an screenshot)

Thanks
Camelia
Click to expand...
Select disk utility from the top menu
 
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camelia said:
Hello

I have download ccc-6.0.1.7100.zip to start my 30-days trial

How do I format my External Hard Disk?

  • macOS Catalina 10.15.7 (19H1217)
  • MBP 15" Mid 2014
  • Adata HD720 1TB External
(If you can, please share an screenshot)

Thanks
Camelia
Click to expand...
Open Disk Utility > highlight your external drive > click on erase from the menu > give it a name > format Mac OS extended journaled.
 
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camelia said:
Hello

I have download ccc-6.0.1.7100.zip to start my 30-days trial
[*]MBP 15" Mid 2014
[*]Adata HD720 1TB External
[/LIST]
(If you can, please share an screenshot)

Thanks
Camelia
Click to expand...

You will probably get many different opinions - I have been for formatting all my drives to APFS (non encrypted) since Mojave - if you have older Mac's that you wish to connect the external to if may be worth considering "MAC OS Extended Journaled"

Here is a screen shot with an external SSD and and External HD both are formatted APFS and work fine with Big Sur and with Mojave macOS

format drive big sur.png
 
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camelia said:
My MBP comes with and SSD, but my External is an spinning Hard Disk, If my External were
SSD then the format will be APFS instead of Mac OS extended journaled right?

Just curios

Thanks
Camelia
Click to expand...
CCC advised me to apply APFS everywhere. There will be a reason for it.
;JOOP!
 
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