CCC (paid version) had a problem to clone my external Thunderbolt drive (El Capitan) to the internal SSD, I could not choose the internal SSD! So I decided to download Super Duper, and with that tool, no problem at all! What the hell has CCC such a problem with such a simple an important action?
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Carbon Copy Cloner vs. Super Duper-Which is better?
- Thread starter kapalua12
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This discussion just settled my questions about this very issue. I recently bought a LaCie external drive and will purchase CCC. Thanks, Weaselboy.
I don't know Super Duper. But I am totally satisfied with CCC.
Very short reaction times in case of all my inquiries with technical questions regarding usage, troubles, plans of proceeding. Answers are always objective. The app by itself also satisfying for me in that extend that after 2 years of usage no need to look for replacement on my side.
Very short reaction times in case of all my inquiries with technical questions regarding usage, troubles, plans of proceeding. Answers are always objective. The app by itself also satisfying for me in that extend that after 2 years of usage no need to look for replacement on my side.
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It seems no one has mentioned one feature that SuperDuper! has over Carbon Copy cloner: Sandbox.
It makes testing new point releases of OS X much easier, in essence it separates user files from OS X installation to separate volume. If new update has problems just boot from normal partition and everything is back to normal. Much faster compared to normal clone. (Needless to say making only Sandbox and no external clone in addition to Sandbox is a very bad idea...)
As for recovery partition I am not saying it has no use but for me its very limited in what it can do and furthermore it can recreated manually quite easily with software such as Recovery Partition Creator.
It makes testing new point releases of OS X much easier, in essence it separates user files from OS X installation to separate volume. If new update has problems just boot from normal partition and everything is back to normal. Much faster compared to normal clone. (Needless to say making only Sandbox and no external clone in addition to Sandbox is a very bad idea...)
As for recovery partition I am not saying it has no use but for me its very limited in what it can do and furthermore it can recreated manually quite easily with software such as Recovery Partition Creator.
One big plus for CCC that I only discovered today. I had a bootable backup created with SuperDuper! and everything worked fine when I booted from it, but I had to restore my Macintosh HD from it and a key program wouldn't work, not enough memory. It turned out the bootable backup only used 2.47Gb while the restored HD was using twice as much. I tried several restores without this changing much. Then I did a restore with CCC, booted and found I was using 2.27Gb on the HD. The program worked fine.
This absolutely should not be the case but it was and I have no idea why.
This absolutely should not be the case but it was and I have no idea why.
CCC.
Saved my office's rear end at least three or four times in the last 10 years.
When my main boot drives failed, the back up clones booted right off.
We also use VMs through VMWare Fusion, and back up those VMs to a separate drive. The VMs also were easy to fire up from the CCC backup.
I did encounter some issues such as having to re-enter some user names and passwords, but it probably saved me the 12-24 hours of work it would have taken to install, test, and rename my Apple Server and Windows Server 2012 VMs that I use in my office.
Worth every penny.
Buy it.
Saved my office's rear end at least three or four times in the last 10 years.
When my main boot drives failed, the back up clones booted right off.
We also use VMs through VMWare Fusion, and back up those VMs to a separate drive. The VMs also were easy to fire up from the CCC backup.
I did encounter some issues such as having to re-enter some user names and passwords, but it probably saved me the 12-24 hours of work it would have taken to install, test, and rename my Apple Server and Windows Server 2012 VMs that I use in my office.
Worth every penny.
Buy it.
I can see using CCC or SD to backup physical drive, but why VM ?
Just back up the .vmwraevm file... that's all i do.... multiple copies..... one bare OS, one complete with anything i use and got installed...
As far as I can tell, CCC will not restore to the boot drive. If you booted from the backup you should be able to restore to the internal drive but if you booted from the internal drive you can't. I discovered this last night.
If you boot up from the CCC backup, you should be able to restore to the main drive, I've done that before no problem at all.
Sorry to bring this up but SD has a problem which should almost never show up. The only reason I discovered it was I inadvertently updated to the latest release of El Capitan, ran into a problem and had to restore the whole system from a backup. After restoration pretty much everything running on the computer was using 50-100% plus more memory. One program I use extensively would not run, although as far as I could tell everything else did. I then booted from several of the backups I had made with SD and found the same problem. There is absolutely no reason I can think of for this to happen.
I downloaded a trial of CCC, restored from that and everything was as it should be. Apparently, whatever SD did during the backup was corrected by CCC during the restore.
I have been using SD for years. In the past I was just fishing old files and programs from backups. The only reason I ran into a problem now is I had to do a complete restore and I have one program that tickles this bug.
If you want to test this for yourself create bootable backups with SD and CCC. Use Activity Monitor to examine memory usage on the HD. Then boot each backup and do the same. You should find the CCC backup uses about the same memory as booting from the HD but the SD backup uses much more. Let me know if you find this is NOT the case on your computer because there may be something on my computer causing it.
I downloaded a trial of CCC, restored from that and everything was as it should be. Apparently, whatever SD did during the backup was corrected by CCC during the restore.
I have been using SD for years. In the past I was just fishing old files and programs from backups. The only reason I ran into a problem now is I had to do a complete restore and I have one program that tickles this bug.
If you want to test this for yourself create bootable backups with SD and CCC. Use Activity Monitor to examine memory usage on the HD. Then boot each backup and do the same. You should find the CCC backup uses about the same memory as booting from the HD but the SD backup uses much more. Let me know if you find this is NOT the case on your computer because there may be something on my computer causing it.
I don't seem to understand fully:
are individual programs using more memory or is the space for cache less than before?
I can hardly believe that the same binary behaves so differently.
Or is there a problem with shared libraries in that they are not shared any more?
;JOOP!
are individual programs using more memory or is the space for cache less than before?
I can hardly believe that the same binary behaves so differently.
Or is there a problem with shared libraries in that they are not shared any more?
;JOOP!
Do two bootable backups using SD and CCC. Boot from each and examine memory usage with Activity Monitor. If your system is like mine you should find the SD backup is using 50-100% more memory on just about every running program (except the kernel) than the CCC backup and the CCC backup is using about the same as the original. This also shows up in memory used, cached files and so on, but that is a rather gross picture. The details are what is interesting. Also, if you backup the SD backup to another backup using CCC, you should find that backup also has normal memory usage.
I know that both SD and CCC exclude certain files from their backups. At this point it appears that SD INCLUDES something that CCC EXCLUDES. That is the only way I can explain why using CCC to backup an SD backup to another backup could correct the problem. I sure wold like to know what that is!
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I missed this in my previous response. That is a very interesting thought. Is there some way to turn this off and on? I still can't see how a SD backup would turn it off and a CCC backup of the SD backup would turn it back on, but I don't pretend to understand what is going on within OS X.
I know that both SD and CCC exclude certain files from their backups. At this point it appears that SD INCLUDES something that CCC EXCLUDES. That is the only way I can explain why using CCC to backup an SD backup to another backup could correct the problem. I sure wold like to know what that is!
[doublepost=1465656090][/doublepost]
I missed this in my previous response. That is a very interesting thought. Is there some way to turn this off and on? I still can't see how a SD backup would turn it off and a CCC backup of the SD backup would turn it back on, but I don't pretend to understand what is going on within OS X.
New thread:
Carbon Copy Cloner or SuperDuper?
https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/carbon-copy-cloner-or-superduper.1994288
Carbon Copy Cloner or SuperDuper?
https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/carbon-copy-cloner-or-superduper.1994288