I just downloaded the trial of CCC...planning to upgrade my Mac HD to SSD. The SSD is currently connected by a USB-SATA cable. I cloned the HD to the SSD overnight. I just did a restart with option held down to boot from the SSD but it doesn’t appear in the bootable list. Would you expect it to appear as bootable? I assumed I could use CCC in this way. Welcome any guidance from the knowledgeable. Cheers
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Carbon Copy Cloner - help
- Thread starter dakeeper14
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A CCC standard backup doesn't include the operating system. I just includes your data, which is all you really need. After you've completed your backup and are confident that your data is safe. Then run the macOS installer to put macOS onto the SSD. Finally, you can swap the SSD with your old HD.
CCC help is useful:
CCC help is useful:
If you would like make a bootable copy of your startup disk with CCC 6:
Creating legacy bootable backups of macOS Big Sur (and later OSes)
But I would like to draw your attention to this section in particular:
Things you should know before relying on an external macOS boot device
In general, we're planning to rely less and less on the bootability of the backup volume for recovery from hardware failure. I explain why in this blog article:
Beyond Bootable Backups: Adapting recovery strategies for an evolving platform
You don't have to be able to boot your Mac from the CCC backup to restore data from it. You can restore individual files and folders using Finder or CCC while booted from your production volume, and you can also recover older versions of files from CCC snapshots. If you ever needed to restore everything from a non-bootable backup, you would install macOS via Recovery mode (e.g. onto a replacement disk), then migrate data from the CCC backup via Migration Assistant. CCC backups are compatible with Migration Assistant, and we support that configuration.
- Choose your startup disk as the source
- Select a destination
- Click on the Destination selector again and choose "Legacy Bootable Backup Assistant"
- Choose the option to create a bootable backup, then run the task
Creating legacy bootable backups of macOS Big Sur (and later OSes)
But I would like to draw your attention to this section in particular:
Things you should know before relying on an external macOS boot device
In general, we're planning to rely less and less on the bootability of the backup volume for recovery from hardware failure. I explain why in this blog article:
Beyond Bootable Backups: Adapting recovery strategies for an evolving platform
You don't have to be able to boot your Mac from the CCC backup to restore data from it. You can restore individual files and folders using Finder or CCC while booted from your production volume, and you can also recover older versions of files from CCC snapshots. If you ever needed to restore everything from a non-bootable backup, you would install macOS via Recovery mode (e.g. onto a replacement disk), then migrate data from the CCC backup via Migration Assistant. CCC backups are compatible with Migration Assistant, and we support that configuration.
Does CCC have a value-add over Time Machine now? Unless I'm reading it wrong, with Monterey I can do similar non-bootable restores with Time Machine but up to the previous hour of work.
I've used CCC for years because of its bootable image restore capability. It was quick and I needed it on several occasions.
I just upgraded to Monterey and upgraded CCC to V6.0.4. CCC flashed a notice that bootable backups were basically off the table as Bombich posts above. So, to ask again, how would I use/need CCC in Monterey? It's not clear after reading all the referenced links. I'm not being negative, but really would like some good use-cases.
I've used CCC for years because of its bootable image restore capability. It was quick and I needed it on several occasions.
I just upgraded to Monterey and upgraded CCC to V6.0.4. CCC flashed a notice that bootable backups were basically off the table as Bombich posts above. So, to ask again, how would I use/need CCC in Monterey? It's not clear after reading all the referenced links. I'm not being negative, but really would like some good use-cases.
Convenience, and for me, triple redundancy. Sure time machine will back up my system, but its right there. The office goes down, or someone breaks in, they get my back up. Yep, I have critical items in the cloud too. But nothing beats connecting my 2tb SSD that fits in my pocket.. having CCC automatically back up critical files to it.. and then unplugging at the end of the day and carrying it with me wherever I go. CCC works flawlessly.
the truth ist, I am asking myself the same question... Do I need CCC any more? The 'killer'-feature of this software was the ability to produce bootable backups. This is something that i constantly used, especially before testing new version of Mac Operating systems...
CCC is for me now just a file backup software with an integrated scheduler. This is something I can also manage with time machine. Actually, when I migrated from my M1 Air to my M1Max MacBook Pro I used my time machine backup and everything worked flawlessly - only rosetta had to be reinstalled... And with BackpLoupe I am also able to search in the different Timemachine snapshots...
So at the moment I am asking myself if I should deinstall CCC as it no longer is providing me any additional feature that I personally need. This is really a pitty, because i really LIKED CCC in the past and this software was very valuable for me.
CCC is for me now just a file backup software with an integrated scheduler. This is something I can also manage with time machine. Actually, when I migrated from my M1 Air to my M1Max MacBook Pro I used my time machine backup and everything worked flawlessly - only rosetta had to be reinstalled... And with BackpLoupe I am also able to search in the different Timemachine snapshots...
So at the moment I am asking myself if I should deinstall CCC as it no longer is providing me any additional feature that I personally need. This is really a pitty, because i really LIKED CCC in the past and this software was very valuable for me.
I say yes, we still need CCC. TimeMachine has failed me too many times to let me feel comfortable with only TimeMachine backups. I run both Time Machine and CCC to 2 backup drives EACH. 1 set of 2 disks are rotated offsite each month to be safe from fire or a break-in. PLUS 1 backup to an SSD for when traveling.
Same here. Lost count of the number of times TM backups failed or were corrupted.
I find CCC useful for several reasons:
1. Scheduled backups of selected files to different storage types: SD, Flash, Cloud.
2. The ability to save to FAT formatted fives so the files are available on a PC in a pinch or just to transfer them
3. As someone pointed out above, I can easily carry my backups with me
4. Reduncancy - if TM fails I still have backups. I do not like relying on a single point of failure.
Of course, I also use QRecall and ARQ as well.
Good point. It depends on your need. The ability to reliably backup to a FAT formatted drive is important to me. YMMV
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This exactly what happened to me and cause me to move to SuperDuper, now to CCC. TM compresses the data and the decompression has to work, or you're screwed (and it did't always work when I needed it). CCC is just a straight file transfer but can be set up to only copy changed files, making the backup process much faster. TM is a great method...when it works!
It is crazy, but Carbon Copy Cloner is now for me much more reliable than TimeMachine. TimeMachines Plug´N´Play stance is long gone for me. I had to babysit backing up.
Starting with Big Sur TimeMachine had many hiccups with us - and this with two differently implemented M1 Macs, with completely separate backup drives and NAS partitions.
At the moment I no longer use TimeMachine. The last straw was the error starting with macos 11.6.1 (which hit both Macs simultaneously) where the backup never finished and could no longer complete. This was with an old backup, a newly formatted drive, a different one - I tried everything. it no longer finishes and it takes forever with lots of HD activity.
Carbon Copy Cloner, on the other hand, just runs like butter - smooth and reliable.
I have the feeling that the programmer of Carbon Copy Cloner understands the APFS file system much better than Apples software engineers.
Starting with Big Sur TimeMachine had many hiccups with us - and this with two differently implemented M1 Macs, with completely separate backup drives and NAS partitions.
At the moment I no longer use TimeMachine. The last straw was the error starting with macos 11.6.1 (which hit both Macs simultaneously) where the backup never finished and could no longer complete. This was with an old backup, a newly formatted drive, a different one - I tried everything. it no longer finishes and it takes forever with lots of HD activity.
Carbon Copy Cloner, on the other hand, just runs like butter - smooth and reliable.
I have the feeling that the programmer of Carbon Copy Cloner understands the APFS file system much better than Apples software engineers.
I switched to CCC for exact the same reason: TimeMachine backups that ran forever.
I refer to this URL https://bombich.com/terms
At 11.C it is stated that .......
You must ensure that you have in place up-to-date and effective anti-virus protection on your computer or other browsing device.
=
Which AV do YOU recommend?
Update
I find this item rather confusing:- https://bombich.com/kb/ccc6/antivirus-software-may-interfere-backup
I'd welcome the views of other folk reading here.
At 11.C it is stated that .......
You must ensure that you have in place up-to-date and effective anti-virus protection on your computer or other browsing device.
=
Which AV do YOU recommend?
Update
I find this item rather confusing:- https://bombich.com/kb/ccc6/antivirus-software-may-interfere-backup
I'd welcome the views of other folk reading here.
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Is it not also true that CCC can back up files ON CHANGE, whereas Time Machine is limited to once an hour? There have been many times when I was working on a file that accidentally got deleted (just carelessness on my part, batch deletes, etc.) and was able to restore it from Crashplan (which I am leaving, hence reading this post) and save myself an hour of redoing important work....
I understand that Apple has made it progressively more difficult to create bootable backups. But I am trying to create a bootable backup (using CCCv4) of an older machine running Yosemite to protect irreplaceable legacy software from eventual hard drive failure. The software and its data will be useless unless I can recreate the entire system. I formatted the disk with MacOS extended journaled, Guid partition. CCC tells me it can't copy applications or system files because the volume is not HFS.
Ok apologies from a newbie. I found that when I partitioned the drive, the disk utility ignored my format selection and made all partitions exfat.