Making a clone to an external drive?

[tigersoul]

I'm intending to make a clone of my m1 mac to an external thunderbolt 3 drive. Not, directly, but by installing macOS to the external drive and using migration assistant on that to restore a full superduper backup taken of my system drive.

This should produce a clone of my system drive as I understand it. I want this to "fork" a sandbox of my main system where I can just continue in an isolated place.

Am I understanding the above correctly? Does it work?
Have you experienced any caveats doing a clone this way?
Will any apps go crazy either in the clone or back on my main drive? I'm thinking about stuff like... Icloud syncing and what not.

Would love some input from someone that actually did this.

 

[PaulD-UK]

I did something similar recently, and whilst it sort of worked there was certainly some funkiness resulting...
I have been running Monterey on my M1 mini, but wanted to try out Ventura before it disappeared from Software Update (when Sonoma shipped).
I did a direct install of Ventura to a TB 3 drive, and used Migration Assistant straight from my internal Macintosh HD.

1. I tried to create an identical user account to my Monterey one, but the Ventura install insisted on making a second identical suffix(2) user account, whilst allowing the creation of what I wanted.
2. Then it insisted on a 2 factor verification - which I was able to do with my phone - but I didn't know which account I was authenticating because passwords were identical...
3. Everything worked, and both user accounts worked as expected, and I was able to test drive Ventura.
But when I tried to revert to the internal SSD it wasn't available (maybe of course?).
4. Only when I disconnected the TB SSD was I able to able to get the long PWR press (old option) boot chooser to work, and revert to the internal SSD.

So I didn't have any problems with app function, and ordinary iCloud functions - Keychain etc worked with no problem.
But I don't use iCloud backup or syncing (except for Safari Bookmarks/History etc with my iPhone).

So with my (very) limited tryout of this method nothing broke - that I'm aware of, but it was probably a case of my Apple ID and the M1 mini enduring it, rather than being happy.
Some of this might have been my fault because I wasn't really concentrating, I just thought I was doing my 500+th OS install, as I've been doing this since 1994.
Doing the migration from a SuperDuper backup is definitely a good start.

But I have a nagging doubt as to whether what you want might only work if you have two Macs - one for each version. But that would probably be a syncing disaster...
Maybe the OS knows too much about what's on the main internal disk to allow an identically IDed clone to be mounted?
I could be overthinking it?

One thing though: with two 3000/2800 MB/s drives on either end of the install and migration I've never done an OS install so quickly, it was all done in about 20mins...

 

[davidlv]

I'm intending to make a clone of my m1 mac to an external thunderbolt 3 drive. Not, directly, but by installing macOS to the external drive and using migration assistant on that to restore a full superduper backup taken of my system drive.

This should produce a clone of my system drive as I understand it. I want this to "fork" a sandbox of my main system where I can just continue in an isolated place.

Am I understanding the above correctly? Does it work?
Have you experienced any caveats doing a clone this way?
Will any apps go crazy either in the clone or back on my main drive? I'm thinking about stuff like... Icloud syncing and what not.

Would love some input from someone that actually did this.

I suggest you both read the blog at <https://bombich.com/>. That is the CarbonCopy Cloner site and the owner and main programmer is well versed in Apple's somewhat demented changes to the OS over the last few years.
To sum it all up, having two identical systems, a clone per se, for example 2 Sonoma systems, can be troublesome. It is quite possible to have an internal Sonoma Volume and separate Volumes for, Ventura, Monterey and even Mojave if you will, on either the internal disk or an external disk.
I have an iMac 15,1 with Sonoma running as the main system on the internal Apple blade SSD and Ventura, Monterey and Mojave (for 32 bit apps) on an external Crucial MX500 SSD. Everything works.
I once tried having 2 Ventura installs (a clone) on the internal and the external disk, but both systems got messed up quickly and I had to punt on 2nd down!
It seems the days of having a clone are essentially over. Once you have a CCC backup, if something gets out of whack, simple wipe the affected disk, reinstall and use MIgration Assistant to revert to your formed install. It is a very quick process actually.

 

[tigersoul]

It sounds like making a clone of the system on my external drive is a risky business. I certainly do NOT want to take any chances of messing up the system on the internal disk as it is critically important for work and more. I can't have downtime there due to experimenting.

I assume here that everything would be fine if I skip the whole clone idea and just install a system fresh on the external drive and set it up manually to whatever state I prefer? Or is that problematic as well? Would it not be recommended for example to log in with the same icloud account? The reason I want a clone is to NOT having to go through the whole setting up and installing apps thing as that will take countless hours of work.

ps: both systems would be ventura.

 

[davidlv]

It sounds like making a clone of the system on my external drive is a risky business. I certainly do NOT want to take any chances of messing up the system on the internal disk as it is critically important for work and more. I can't have downtime there due to experimenting.

I assume here that everything would be fine if I skip the whole clone idea and just install a system fresh on the external drive and set it up manually to whatever state I prefer? Or is that problematic as well? Would it not be recommended for example to log in with the same icloud account? The reason I want a clone is to NOT having to go through the whole setting up and installing apps thing as that will take countless hours of work.

ps: both systems would be ventura.

I can only tell you what my experience has been. Having two identical systems (with both connected, one internal and one external) seems to be the problem nowadays. I have had no trouble on my iMac 15,1 at all with Sonoma installed on the internal SSD, and bootable Ventura and Monterey both connected via USB (separate Volumes on a Crucial MX500 512GB SSD). iCloud of course is irritating about confirming your identity after you boot a different system but it does work.
If you are concerned about "having to go through the whole setting up and installing apps thing", simply use Carbon Copy Cloner to make a regular backup of the internal disk to an external SSD connected via USB 3.0. If you have to resort to using the backup, just boot up from a USB install disk, wipe the internal disk, install a new system and at the end of that install, use Migration Assistant to restore all of your apps and data (including network setting etc. for the external CCC backup disk. The end result is a perfect clone of your healthy original install. That process is fairly easy and quick (depends on the size of your installed system of course, but in my case, less than an hour).
Again, read the blog at the Carbon Copy Cloner HP <https://bombich.com/>. It is easy to understand and very informative.

 

[tigersoul]

I can only tell you what my experience has been. Having two identical systems (with both connected, one internal and one external) seems to be the problem nowadays. I have had no trouble on my iMac 15,1 at all with Sonoma installed on the internal SSD, and bootable Ventura and Monterey both connected via USB [...]
Again, read the blog at the Carbon Copy Cloner HP <https://bombich.com/>. It is easy to understand and very informative.

I see. Does having two systems of the same macOS version that aren't clones work equally well? For example, both systems being ventura? I'm referring to using the macOS installer targeting an external drive and setting that external macOS version up manually, not using migration assistant.

I have read the CCC Blog and while it state things quite clearly relating to restoring a system from a CCC Backup, it says little to nothing about having a second system while continuing to use the primary system on the same computer. But apparently, as you state, that is not a recommended thing anymore.

Clarification: the reason I'd prefer cloning my system to an external drive rather than starting from zero is simply to not having to install all the standard stuff. Ideal for my use case would be to just clone the system drive to an external drive and continue in a separate system there, but apparently, that's not a good idea.

EDIT: I've now read the blog more closely at CCC and it seems they are saying that doing a clone is ok, not for backup but for "testing purposes". What issues did you have, as stated "I once tried having 2 Ventura installs (a clone) on the internal and the external disk, but both systems got messed up quickly and I had to punt on 2nd down!"?

 

[davidlv]

I see. Does having two systems of the same macOS version that aren't clones work equally well? For example, both systems being ventura? I'm referring to using the macOS installer targeting an external drive and setting that external macOS version up manually, not using migration assistant.

I have read the CCC Blog and while it state things quite clearly relating to restoring a system from a CCC Backup, it says little to nothing about having a second system while continuing to use the primary system on the same computer. But apparently, as you state, that is not a recommended thing anymore.

Clarification: the reason I'd prefer cloning my system to an external drive rather than starting from zero is simply to not having to install all the standard stuff. Ideal for my use case would be to just clone the system drive to an external drive and continue in a separate system there, but apparently, that's not a good idea.

EDIT: I've now read the blog more closely at CCC and it seems they are saying that doing a clone is ok, not for backup but for "testing purposes". What issues did you have, as stated "I once tried having 2 Ventura installs (a clone) on the internal and the external disk, but both systems got messed up quickly and I had to punt on 2nd down!"?

In regard to your "that aren't clones", as far as I know, there is no difference between any Apple system these days, regardless of how it was obtained, fresh install or clone by SuperDuper or CCC. The system resides on its own volume and the user sees it as one entity including the Data partition. That is a security feature and you can't change the system part, so all systems, regardless of install method, are identical clones, by design, except perhaps for changes/differences in the User Data part..
So any two such system can be problematic when both are connected. As I said i had trouble once with two such systems, basically the one I was running was OK but the other one got corrupted and wouldn't boot. I did not look further. You may be OK having two identical systems, but you have been warned. CCC might be able to make a clone of your system and data using its Legacy clone function, and SuperDuper! can do it too. Mike Bombich said that is due to limitations in the Apple tool that must be used to make a true clone.
You are at your own risk here. As I said, I have CCC backups stored on 2 separate SSDs, that's enough for me to rest easy. My data is currently available on 5 separate disks.
Your constant posting about 2 systems is getting tiresome. Read the CCC blog. Mike Bombich is an expert at working with Apple's vagrancies, and I trust his expertise enough to avoid what you want to do so badly that you ignore several warnings about it. Go ahead, make a clone and if something gets corrupted don't complain about it.

 

[Ben J.]

I admit, I haven't read thru all details in the thread, but here's my experience.

I've had a bootable clone on an external disk over Intel macs and apple silicon - across all OS'es back to the stone age. I now have a fully functional bootable clone with Ventura 13.4.1, and the -Data part of it is cloned regurarly with CCC. I could have lived without it fine, but one BIG benefit is that if I should want to roll back my internal -Data volume to a snapshot, when I use CCC, booting from the clone, it's done in seconds because CCC only restores modified files. You can't do that when booted from the internal or Recovery. Plus, I can, in a pinch, continue working on the clone should something go really wrong on the internal. (The internal itself must be functional, of course, or the whole mac is a brick.)

I used to use the CCC feature called "Legacy boot installer" to create the system volume, but the last couple of times when I upgraded macOS, I simply used a USB installer to install the OS, and then used CCC to clone the -Data volume. Much like you outlined in your opening post.

Works without a hitch. I certainly never experienced this external clone disturbing my internal in any way.

A couple of things; I never tried to have different OS versions on the two, though I can't see why it shouldn't work (though I can imagine incompatibilities appearing) - and there is always an alert or two about some system extention or 'helper' that needs to be enabled when I boot from the external. That's because it's 'Security/privacy settings' stuff.

Anyway, for me this is not a big deal. Should I need to restore my internal completely, I could do it just fine by erasing it, installing the latest OS, and migrating the -Data volume from any of my multiple backups. But the quick 'roll-back' I get when booting from the clone is very nice to have. I can restore to yesterday's state in litterally a couple of minutes.

 

[tigersoul]

Your constant posting about 2 systems is getting tiresome. Read the CCC blog. Mike Bombich is an expert at working with Apple's vagrancies, and I trust his expertise enough to avoid what you want to do so badly that you ignore several warnings about it. Go ahead, make a clone and if something gets corrupted don't complain about it.

I'm sorry if I seem repetitive as I just wanted to make sure we understood each other correctly.

If I understand you correctly in your last post, you are saying any two systems connected at the same time would be problematic, clones or not. In that sense, even going the official installer -> external disk approach would be problematic as the internal disk cannot be disconnected.

I admit, I haven't read thru all details in the thread, but here's my experience.

I've had a bootable clone on an external disk over Intel macs and apple silicon - across all OS'es back to the stone age. I now have a fully functional bootable clone with Ventura 13.4.1, and the -Data part of it is cloned regurarly with CCC. I could have lived without it fine, but one BIG benefit is that if I should want to roll back my internal -Data volume to a snapshot, when I use CCC, booting from the clone, it's done in seconds because CCC only restores modified files. You can't do that when booted from the internal or Recovery. Plus, I can, in a pinch, continue working on the clone should something go really wrong on the internal. (The internal itself must be functional, of course, or the whole mac is a brick.)

I used to use the CCC feature called "Legacy boot installer" to create the system volume, but the last couple of times when I upgraded macOS, I simply used a USB installer to install the OS, and then used CCC to clone the -Data volume. Much like you outlined in your opening post.

Works without a hitch. I certainly never experienced this external clone disturbing my internal in any way.

A couple of things; I never tried to have different OS versions on the two, though I can't see why it shouldn't work (though I can imagine incompatibilities appearing) - and there is always an alert or two about some system extention or 'helper' that needs to be enabled when I boot from the external. That's because it's 'Security/privacy settings' stuff.

Anyway, for me this is not a big deal. Should I need to restore my internal completely, I could do it just fine by erasing it, installing the latest OS, and migrating the -Data volume from any of my multiple backups. But the quick 'roll-back' I get when booting from the clone is very nice to have. I can restore to yesterday's state in litterally a couple of minutes.

Interesting. This goes in stark contrast to what Davidlv is warning above. As I've researched this topic deeper, it seems some find cloning to work just fine while others report that it really isn't a good idea. It's perplexing and hard to find out what actually works and not. I don't understand why it is fully successful to some and not at all to others.

For example: I just talked to Rob at CCC (Bombich Software) and he says they haven't heard of any ill effects cloning the system like this. At the same time, this (in my point of view) reputable page, testing that very feature (legacy boot installer) says it's not functional to clone an internal drive and recommend against trying it. Albeit, this was written in 2021 on Big sur: https://eclecticlight.co/2021/05/25/can-you-create-an-external-bootable-disk-by-cloning-an-m1-mac/
And we have davidlv above of course, also stating negative effects.

What gives? 🤷‍♀️😂

 

[PaulD-UK]

It sounds like having a same-OS clone that is disconnected is no problem,
and connecting it as (effectively) a read-only backup isn't a problem.

It's having a connected clone that is used (for some of the time ) as a working boot drive -
then going back to using the internal Macintosh HD actively -
with repeated sessions booted to either -
is very likely problematic.

 

[Ben J.]

Interesting. This goes in stark contrast to what Davidlv is warning above. As I've researched this topic deeper, it seems some find cloning to work just fine while others report that it really isn't a good idea. It's perplexing and hard to find out what actually works and not. I don't understand why it is fully successful to some and not at all to others.

For example: I just talked to Rob at CCC (Bombich Software) and he says they haven't heard of any ill effects cloning the system like this. At the same time, this (in my point of view) reputable page, testing that very feature (legacy boot installer) says it's not functional to clone an internal drive and recommend against trying it. Albeit, this was written in 2021 on Big sur: https://eclecticlight.co/2021/05/25/can-you-create-an-external-bootable-disk-by-cloning-an-m1-mac/
And we have davidlv above of course, also stating negative effects.

What gives? 🤷‍♀️😂

It's quite simple; you can't trust anything you read, here on this forum, or anywhere else. The web is being saturated by half-truths and false information feedback loops. It's a jungle. You have to find a good tree. And watch out for intruders.

Seriously, you can find some good trees. Mike Bombich is one of them. Posters who write: "Seems like" this, and "apparently" that, are just a part of the big fog we have to sift thru. Good luck to you.

(Jungles have fogs too, ya know.)

 

[tigersoul]

It sounds like having a same-OS clone that is disconnected is no problem,
and connecting it as (effectively) a read-only backup isn't a problem.

It's having a connected clone that is used (for some of the time ) as a working boot drive -
then going back to using the internal Macintosh HD actively -
with repeated sessions booted to either -
is very likely problematic.

It may be that, but on the other hand, the official information from CCC says this shouldn't be a problem so who knows.

It's quite simple; you can't trust anything you read, here on this forum, or anywhere else. The web is being saturated by half-truths and false information feedback loops. It's a jungle. You have to find a good tree. And watch out for intruders.

Seriously, you can find some good trees. Mike Bombich is one of them. Posters who write: "Seems like" this, and "apparently" that, are just a part of the big fog we have to sift thru. Good luck to you.

(Jungles have fogs too, ya know.)

Couldn't have said it better myself. It's exhausting.

 

[davidlv]

It sounds like having a same-OS clone that is disconnected is no problem,
and connecting it as (effectively) a read-only backup isn't a problem.

It's having a connected clone that is used (for some of the time ) as a working boot drive -
then going back to using the internal Macintosh HD actively -
with repeated sessions booted to either -
is very likely problematic.

Yes, that is exactly what caused my former issues. As I have said, that opinion was based on a bad experience with a connected and used clone. I did not say that having a clone is bad per se, make one and keeping it for a rainy day should be OK. Using it was a problem for me.
In any case the Apple system itself is identical whether you make a clone with a utility or by installing and using Migration Assistant to get your data back. There is no difference in the system, that is by design, kudos or boos to Apple regardless.

 

[tigersoul]

Yes, that is exactly what caused my former issues. As I have said, that opinion was based on a bad experience with a connected and used clone. I did not say that having a clone is bad per se, make one and keeping it for a rainy day should be OK. Using it was a problem for me.
In any case the Apple system itself is identical whether you make a clone with a utility or by installing and using Migration Assistant to get your data back. There is no difference in the system, that is by design, kudos or boos to Apple regardless.

I see. Well, I'll just have to analyze this and see what I should do.

 

[Fishrrman]

Jeesh.

Don't make this harder than what it is. Indeed, it's not "hard" -- it's easy.

Use SuperDuper -- it's a bit easier to use than is CCC for this purpose, and it's also FREE to use for this purpose.

You want to use an SSD that is the same size (or larger than) the internal drive.

The drive will be ENTIRELY ERASED by SD during the cloning process.
You don't want anything else on it.

From this point, just connect the external drive, open SD, and set it to make a full clone. It will do the rest.

One proviso:
You MUST use an SSD for the clone to be bootable.
It may be possible to create a bootable clone for an m-series Mac on a platter-based HDD, but I couldn't do it. Whereas using an SSD, the job "went through" without problems.
(I welcome reports from others who HAVE been successful using an HDD)

When done, the backup should be a bootable clone of your internal drive (and OS) as it existed at the time of cloning.

IMPORTANT:
SD can also do "incremental updates" of the cloned drive.
HOWEVER, the updates will only affect your own data.
They WILL NOT update the "Sealed System Volume" -- hence, the version of the OS on it will always remain "what it was" at the time the clone was first created.

Having said that, the process works well.
I have a 2021 MacBook Pro 14" and I use an nvme blade SSD in a USB3.1 gen2 enclosure as the backup. Boots fine from the backup.

And having said THAT, also understand that once the original clone has been created, you can ALSO use CarbonCopyCloner to "maintain it". I've done that.

One final note:
SD is free to create the original "full" clone.
To do "incremental" backups afterward, you need to register.

Hope this helps.

 

[tigersoul]

Jeesh.

Don't make this harder than what it is. Indeed, it's not "hard" -- it's easy.

Use SuperDuper -- it's a bit easier to use than is CCC for this purpose, and it's also FREE to use for this purpose.

You want to use an SSD that is the same size (or larger than) the internal drive.

The drive will be ENTIRELY ERASED by SD during the cloning process.
You don't want anything else on it.

From this point, just connect the external drive, open SD, and set it to make a full clone. It will do the rest.

One proviso:
You MUST use an SSD for the clone to be bootable.
It may be possible to create a bootable clone for an m-series Mac on a platter-based HDD, but I couldn't do it. Whereas using an SSD, the job "went through" without problems.
(I welcome reports from others who HAVE been successful using an HDD)

When done, the backup should be a bootable clone of your internal drive (and OS) as it existed at the time of cloning.

IMPORTANT:
SD can also do "incremental updates" of the cloned drive.
HOWEVER, the updates will only affect your own data.
They WILL NOT update the "Sealed System Volume" -- hence, the version of the OS on it will always remain "what it was" at the time the clone was first created.

Having said that, the process works well.
I have a 2021 MacBook Pro 14" and I use an nvme blade SSD in a USB3.1 gen2 enclosure as the backup. Boots fine from the backup.

And having said THAT, also understand that once the original clone has been created, you can ALSO use CarbonCopyCloner to "maintain it". I've done that.

One final note:
SD is free to create the original "full" clone.
To do "incremental" backups afterward, you need to register.

Hope this helps.

Thanks for the reply. Yeah I realized SD can do this as well. I don't need incremental updating as I only want a full clone that will then be used a separate sandbox or whatever you want to call it. I will use it to install software that I don't want on my main system.

Sounds like you didn't have the issues some people talk about.

 

[theorist9]

I understand the reason you want a bootable clone is to have a sanbox to test out apps. One other approach (which you may have already considered and discarded) is to create a separate container on your internal drive, and install an OS there. Then you'd have a bootable internal sandbox.

I'd recommend creating a separate container, not a separate volume on your existing container, to maintain complete separation; a separate container is a separate physical partition.

I've done this to test new OS's before I upgrade my main system to them, and it works fine.

Since it would be a sandbox for testing new apps, you wouldn't need to copy over many personal files, nor would you need to copy over your other apps, so you'd just need enough room for the OS, some test files, and your test apps. Thus 60–100 GB might be plenty. Though if you're concered about apps interacting with each other, you might want to copy over your entire app library, which would require more room.

 

[tigersoul]

I understand the reason you want a bootable clone is to have a sanbox to test out apps. One other approach (which you may have already considered and discarded) is to create a separate container on your internal drive, and install an OS there. Then you'd have a bootable internal sandbox.

I'd recommend creating a separate container, not a separate volume on your existing container, to maintain complete separation; a separate container is a separate physical partition.

I've done this to test new OS's before I upgrade my main system to them, and it works fine.

Since it would be a sandbox for testing new apps, you wouldn't need to copy over many personal files, nor would you need to copy over your other apps, so you'd just need enough room for the OS, some test files, and your test apps. Thus 60–100 GB might be plenty. Though if you're concered about apps interacting with each other, you might want to copy over your entire app library, which would require more room.

The thing is that I need most of the apps I have today in the cloned environment. That's the reason I want to clone. I don't want to redo the job of installing the foundation again before I can move on and install the testing apps. The testing apps also use quite a bit of space so they need to be on a separate disk. But the idea was good, just not great for my use scenario.

 

[MarkC426]

One proviso:
You MUST use an SSD for the clone to be bootable.
It may be possible to create a bootable clone for an m-series Mac on a platter-based HDD, but I couldn't do it. Whereas using an SSD, the job "went through" without problems.
(I welcome reports from others who HAVE been successful using an HDD)

When done, the backup should be a bootable clone of your internal drive (and OS) as it existed at the time of cloning.

I think it's 50/50 if it works.
I did a full clone with SD to a Samsung T7, which all shows correctly, but if you boot from it, it's a no-go.
I got a message saying none system disk.

I am happy with a 'data clone' which can be restored if needed with migration assistant.

Mac Pro cloning was so straight forward.....🤪

 

[tigersoul]

I think it's 50/50 if it works.
I did a full clone with SD to a Samsung T7, which all shows correctly, but if you boot from it, it's a no-go.
I got a message saying none system disk.

I am happy with a 'data clone' which can be restored if needed with migration assistant.

Mac Pro cloning was so straight forward.....🤪

I've read that USB booting can be a hit or miss, thunderbolt is apparently more sure to boot.

 

[Ben J.]

I've read that USB booting can be a hit or miss, thunderbolt is apparently more sure to boot.

Well, you shouldn't beleive everything you read.
It's definitely not true.

 

[tigersoul]

Well, you shouldn't beleive everything you read.
It's definitely not true.

Sounds about right regarding the whole topic. 😂