CCC Snapshots vs Timemachine Snapshots

[BigMcGuire]

Are there any differences between Carbon Copy Cloner and Time Machine's snapshots?

I've been using both for awhile and would rather just use one (CCC). Initially, I was Time Machining to a specific disk and CCC'ing to two other disks. Well my TM disk died so I figured I would just turn on snapshots with CCC and keep using my other two disks.

I'm using a MBP 13' 2017 with CCC 5.1.7 and two external disks (one at work/home).

I encrypt my disks before touching them with CCC.

A little confused on the whole encryption thing. CCC really pushes hard to format unencrypted, backup to create recovery hd, then boot to that drive and encrypt after backup, all so that I can boot from the disk and recover it easier. However, if I'm willing to recover Mac OS from the disk that came with my MacBook then install CCC then restore from my external CCC disk, that should be fine too, right?

https://bombich.com/kb/ccc5/frequently-asked-questions-about-encrypting-backup-volume#pre_encrypt

Anyone use TM AND CCC?

Thanks for your time.

 

[cmaier]

I use both. Ccc makes a complete image. TM simulates that but most files will be links to older snapshots. So the ccc backup should be somewhat more reliable, but of course you lose file versioning unless you tell it to keep old versions.

 

[Weaselboy]

Are there any differences between Carbon Copy Cloner and Time Machine's snapshots?

I use CCC and TM. I think there is a lot of confusion surrounding this issue. My understanding after reading the CCC support info is CCC is leveraging the TM snapshots with its SafetyNet feature to allow you to restore back in time like have always been able to do with TM backups. I don't believe there are actually CCC snapshots on your source drive.

I just format the external CCC to APFS encrypted since I don't care if the CCC clone is bootable. I don't use CCC SafetyNet since TM and Arq take care of that if I ever need an old version of a file.

 

[BigMcGuire]

I use CCC and TM. I think there is a lot of confusion surrounding this issue. My understanding after reading the CCC support info is CCC is leveraging the TM snapshots with its SafetyNet feature to allow you to restore back in time like have always been able to do with TM backups. I don't believe there are actually CCC snapshots on your source drive.

I just format the external CCC to APFS encrypted since I don't care if the CCC clone is bootable. I don't use CCC SafetyNet since TM and Arq take care of that if I ever need an old version of a file.

Thank you very much for your reply. I'm very happy to read this. This was my conclusion after spending a lot of time trying to figure it out on my own.

I look in the snapshots area on disk and it looks identical to TM snapshots. They also have that SafetyNet feature, which creates a _CCC SafetyNet folder on the backup drive of anything that changed when doing a CCC Backup. The CCC Snapshots look just like TM Snapshots on the local disk.

I use old disks from my random IT jobs that people throw away for my backups so they've already been used for years and years - probably why the TM disk died finally (it was a 1TB WD Green) - probably used for 10+ years. Time to find another one for a TM Backup.

Using a WD Passport 2.5' 2TB at work and 3TB at home for CCC backups.

Glad to hear about the CCC clone bootable. I don't care either about it being bootable.

Thank you for the reply. Nice.

 

[Weaselboy]

I too was confused by all this when CCC rolled out the snapshot support.

I finally convinced myself what was going on by doing some testing.



You can see the TM snapshots here in CCC. Then run this command in Terminal to delete the TM snapshots. Then check in CCC again and you will see they are all gone. So it seems pretty clear these snapshots CCC is showing are just the TM snapshots and not something CCC is creating on the source drive.

tmutil  listlocalsnapshotdates / |grep 20|while read f; do tmutil deletelocalsnapshots $f; done

 

[BigMcGuire]

I too was confused by all this when CCC rolled out the snapshot support.

I finally convinced myself what was going on by doing some testing.

View attachment 814590

You can see the TM snapshots here in CCC. Then run this command in Terminal to delete the TM snapshots. Then check in CCC again and you will see they are all gone. So it seems pretty clear these snapshots CCC is showing are just the TM snapshots and not something CCC is creating on the source drive.

tmutil  listlocalsnapshotdates / |grep 20|while read f; do tmutil deletelocalsnapshots $f; done

Agreed - and done. Thank you!
[doublepost=1546878681][/doublepost]

I too was confused by all this when CCC rolled out the snapshot support.

I finally convinced myself what was going on by doing some testing.

View attachment 814590

You can see the TM snapshots here in CCC. Then run this command in Terminal to delete the TM snapshots. Then check in CCC again and you will see they are all gone. So it seems pretty clear these snapshots CCC is showing are just the TM snapshots and not something CCC is creating on the source drive.

tmutil  listlocalsnapshotdates / |grep 20|while read f; do tmutil deletelocalsnapshots $f; done

Oh hey, check this out. So I turned on CCC snapshots, I manually wiped out TM snapshots like you mentioned --- and it shows this:

Is this new with CCC ? Almost looks like they're identical TM snapshots, but with the CCC name.

 

[Weaselboy]

Is this new with CCC ? Almost looks like they're identical TM snapshots, but with the CCC name.

Hmmm... so it does look like CCC may be creating its own snapshots? Confusing.

 

[BigMcGuire]

Hmmm... so it does look like CCC may be creating its own snapshots? Confusing.

Agreed! It looks like it, but I'm not certain either. Either way, CCC is pretty awesome - love the developer and the help files available, even if they're way over my head. lol.

Going to try to get by with CCC Snapshots until someone tosses out a 1-2-3-4TB drive over the next year.

Thanks again for your help.

 

[chscag]

Hmmm... so it does look like CCC may be creating its own snapshots? Confusing.

Yeah, I was confused by this also. I contacted Bombich and he confirmed that CCC will indeed create snapshots on the source drive unless you turn them off in preferences. I also have the CCC SafetyNet on. Thanks for the terminal command, it removes both the TM and CCC snapshots.

 

[BigMcGuire]

Yeah, I was confused by this also. I contacted Bombich and he confirmed that CCC will indeed create snapshots on the source drive unless you turn them off in preferences. I also have the CCC SafetyNet on. Thanks for the terminal command, it removes both the TM and CCC snapshots.

Creating snapshots is off by default. I did some reading into local/disk snapshots and I think I see what they're doing. Mac will keep a handful of local snapshots just in case - allowing you to roll back without the external disk. But all of the official snapshots and what not are on the disk (especially for time machine). The safety feature is nice, because I modify/delete stuff all the time.

TM is a lot slower than CCC for me. Probably my 175 GB Photos library. So I'm happy to just use CCC. But I guess it doesn't hurt to use TM either.

Thinking maybe I should use the drive at work for TM and the drive at home for CCC instead of both for CCC.

 

[Apple_Robert]

Creating snapshots is off by default. I did some reading into local/disk snapshots and I think I see what they're doing. Mac will keep a handful of local snapshots just in case - allowing you to roll back without the external disk. But all of the official snapshots and what not are on the disk (especially for time machine). The safety feature is nice, because I modify/delete stuff all the time.

TM is a lot slower than CCC for me. Probably my 175 GB Photos library. So I'm happy to just use CCC. But I guess it doesn't hurt to use TM either.

Thinking maybe I should use the drive at work for TM and the drive at home for CCC instead of both for CCC.

In my opinion, CCC is more reliable than TM. I too use both. I suggest making a backup of your CCC backup and TM backup. That way, if you should have 2 hard drive failures occurring around the same time, especially using older drives, you should be covered. I also suggest going a step further and using Backblaze, Arq, or some other form of online backup. It may seem like overkill. However, when the proverbial crap hits the fan, you will be glad you didn't lose any data.

 

[ignatius345]

In my opinion, CCC is more reliable than TM. I too use both. I suggest making a backup of your CCC backup and TM backup. That way, if you should have 2 hard drive failures occurring around the same time, especially using older drives, you should be covered. I also suggest going a step further and using Backblaze, Arq, or some other form of online backup. It may seem like overkill. However, when the proverbial crap hits the fan, you will be glad you didn't lose any data.

I use CCC to make a monthly backup (encrypted of course) to keep offsite, and Time Machine locally for continuous versions of things. In the event of disaster at home, anything modified newer than my last offsite backup is going to be inside iCloud somewhere (Drive or Photos) and thus also saved offsite. Takes all of 10 minutes a month to maintain, not counting the minor schlepping of the backup drive to its home at my office.

I'd be curious to hear anyone's tips/links about "data rot" -- i.e. checking to verify that backed-up files are indeed still accessible and viable.