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SuperDuper or Carbon Copy
- Thread starter harleymhs
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Thanks.. But I'm a little confused about the recovery partition .. Super duper is bootable so why would u need another recovery partition on CC ? If both are bootable ..
I am using Snow Leopard, don't have a recovery part so I am not bothered with that, however, I was using SD but it seemed that the general consensus amongst the experienced Mac users on this forum recommended CCC, so I went to CCC and I love CCC, using the free version, does everything I want, very happy.
I am using Snow Leopard, don't have a recovery part so I am not bothered with that, however, I was using SD but it seemed that the general consensus amongst the experienced Mac users on this forum recommended CCC, so I went to CCC and I love CCC, using the free version, does everything I want, very happy.
Does the free version of CCC let u do incremental back ups?
Yes.
If something happens to your internal drive, you'll want to restore all of it, including the recovery partition. The recovery partition is not a replacement for a bootable backup, and serves other purposes you may find useful.
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It wasn't introduced until Lion, since Snow Leopard and earlier releases were distributed on DVD. Lion and Mountain Lion are not offered on disc, hence the need for a recovery partition, to perform functions that were previously done with the install DVD.
OS X: About OS X Recovery
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Im Still confused... Im running ML and using SD and being that SD doesnt have the recovery would I still be able to restore the complete system if need be with SD with out the recovery partititon? It does make itself bootable.. Thats where im confused.. I tried the FREE version of CCC and it comes up with an error with ML ? But still seems to run after you close the error out? Is anyone useing the FREE version of CCC with ML ?? Thanks for everyones replies!!!
I ran the free version with ML for months until upgrading to the paid version. It works fine.
Again, the recovery partition is there so you can boot up into it and perform disk maintenance, trouble shoot, reinstall ML, etc. Apple includes this as these functions used to be accessed by booting off the install disks, which you no longer get. Since not everyone has a bootable clone nor a USB recovery key, they included a way to do these things without install disks.
I'm trying to confirm my understanding of the exact nature of the recovery partition. If the Macintosh HD partition is reformatted, booting to the recovery partition will enable Lion or ML to be reinstalled to the factory delivery state, and that the recovery partition is the equivalent of an OS install DVD, or USB drive. Is this correct? If so, is there a utility that would enable the recovery partition contents to be extracted to create an installation DVD or USB drive?
I don't think so, as the recover partition is ~1GB and the install key is ~4.7GB. I think it includes such things as terminal, disk utility, wifi connectivity & drivers. I believe that if you boot into the recovery partition, it will download ML from Apple servers. It doesn't have the OS embedded in it. However, I'm not 100% certain on this.
The full install is not on the Recovery HD partition (which is 650MB). It just contains a some utilities (like Disk Utility) and allows you to connect to Apple's servers to redownload the entire OS (4.7GB) if you need to.
The Recovery HD is also good to boot to for troubleshooting. Although you can run without it, it is good to have.
You need to be running Time Machine to back up your stuff to an external disk, or one of the listed apps in this thread, i.e., SuperDuper or Carbon Copy Cloner.
I am also partial to Carbon Copy Cloner. It is a great application.
Unlike others here... I would not recommend it as your primary backup. I prefer a primary backup that does a better job than CCC for versioning. You can set up CCC to create a directory structure which comprehends versions... but it is (IMHO) inadequate for anything more than recovery of a few files. I prefer Time Machine for versioning.
Having said that... nothing stops one from using CCC as a secondary backup. It has the advantage of creating bootable backups... which is valuable for some.
My priority in backup is:
1) TM: Primary local backup with excellent versioning
2) Crashplan+: Inexpensive and secure off-site automatic backup
3) CCC: 2nd local backup, easy to understand "plain file system", bootable
I would implement them in that order... but would always do at least the first two.
/Jim
Yes it seems to work fine for me on ML. I just close out the warning message indicating that the product is not certified for ML and then do what I want to do.
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For CCC, can anyone please explain the differences between the free version and the paid version?
The free version is older and generally not available - at least on the developer's site. The paid version is newer updated by the vendor and supports Mountain Lion's recovery partition
The older, free version has not been tested with Mountain Lion. There is a post here on this issue from the CCC developer.
The free version is available on the developer's site, and does support cloning the OS X recovery partition, which it has done since Lion. There is no meaningful difference, if any, in the functionality of the free and paid versions. Future development will be on the paid version, of course.
Here's the link to the developer's site to download the free 3.4.7 version: Carbon Copy Cloner - Download