Sidebar Sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

Carbon Copy Cloner VS Time Machine

J

jcdavies

macrumors member
Original poster
Jun 7, 2010
86
0
Hi Guys

I was just wondering which one you would recommend to use as my main back up. The hard drive that I will be doing my back ups too wont be constantly attached to the computer only when i perform the back up.

I know the two programs work very differently and was wondering what people recommend.

I will be backing up the computer every 2 or 3 weeks.

Thanks for your help
 
TM automatically backs up your system hourly. You have little options in terms of controlling the program. Its built into the OS, so its tightly integrated with OSX, and its ease of use is unparalleled. A full system restore is painfully slow, I did one and it took over 8 hours.

CCC needs to be fired off manually and clones your drive, block by block, as opposed to copying files like TM. it creates a bootable image and unlike TM its quite a bit faster when you need to restore the entire system (2 hours vs. 8 hours). Its not too helpful in restoring individual files, but then you can manually drag and drop those.

Personally, I use both. I have a Time Capsule for Time Machine backups and they go there, while I have two external drives that I use for Carbon Copy Cloner. One of the external drives is a portable drive that take offsite. A backup of your system won't protect your data if there's a fire or theft. CCC is better at full system restores so I use that when I need to go that route as opposed to a file restore which I use TM for.

All in all, both are great products aimed at slightly different uses, but in the end they both provide a good backup/restore solution.
 
In my opinion, Time Machine is the way to go. At my house, I've got a 2008 MacPro and my wife has a G4 PowerBook. I've got a 2 TB drive in the MacPro dedicated to TM. I let mine backup up automatically, but have TM turned off on the PB because that computer is pretty slow. Then every few weeks, I'll do a backup on the PB.

The great thing about TM is that, most of the time, the backups are very quick, because not much changed. Furthermore, the fact that it will keep multiple versions of files is really handy. Sometimes you might want to go 2 or 3 versions back in time. Plus, the restore feature is so well implemented in TM.

I can't imagine a better back application than Time Machine. This is one area that Apple did just about everything right.
 
mchalebk said:
Furthermore, the fact that it will keep multiple versions of files is really handy.
Click to expand...
This is a great option and a major reason I include TM as part of my back up strategy.

One thing I noticed is that when the system thinks significant changes occur, i.e., need to rebackup the entire system. It will start wholesale deleting of my incremental backups. I had this occur a couple of times and I wished TM would provide more feedback/interaction before it decided to delete everything.
 
Its not a lie, the truth is the application itself offers little control. That's not to say other apps have filled in the gaps.

I was not misleading the OP and such confrontational posting is really not needed
 
I use CCC and have no complaints. TM has aggravated me on more than one occasion, so I don't use it. Kinda like Safari.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back