Fed up with Time Machine disk problem

[Henri9009]

Hi to all!

It's the second time during the last year... and the first time, I had to throw away the disk and buy a new one, there was nothing to do, not even format it.

Suddenly, the Time Machine disk is having a problem. Disk Utility can't repair it, it tells me to format it.

I'm getting fed up with that problem... I'm using different other external disks and I never have any problem with them. It seems to be a Time Machine problem.

OS 10.10.5

Thanks for your advice!

 

[Henri9009]

Seems I reacted too fast... I restarted in Safe Mode, did a Disk Utility check, and it said the disk is fine!

I restarted, and it's OK.

If someone has an advice anyway, I'm all ears!

 

[Fishrrman]

My advice:
Give a "cloning" app a try -- either CarbonCopyCloner or SuperDuper.

You may like them.
And there's NOTHING that will help a Mac user "in a moment of extreme need" as well as having a fully-bootable-to-the-finder cloned backup.

 

[old-wiz]

My advice:
Give a "cloning" app a try -- either CarbonCopyCloner or SuperDuper.

You may like them.
And there's NOTHING that will help a Mac user "in a moment of extreme need" as well as having a fully-bootable-to-the-finder cloned backup.

I clone all of my Macs to eternal drives, usually so that I have 3 backups of each disk but all on a separate disk. For example, I have a 2 TB drive which I split into 3 or 4 partitions depending on size of system disks. I think I have about 15 disks in all, al with multiple copies of different disks.

 

[Henri9009]

Thanks a lot Fishrrman!

What's the difference between a Time Machine backup (that I can restore) and the apps you're telling me about?

 

[Fishrrman]

The difference is that with a cloned backup, you can "boot to the finder" and it will be an EXACT COPY of your source (internal) drive.

You can run applications.
You can diagnose problems.
You can restore one file, part of the drive, or the entire drive if you wish.

With TM, you can [kind of] boot -- but what you'll get is something like the recovery partition, with very limited options.

With a cloned backup, again, you get a FULL BOOT to the finder.

The only way you're ever going to fully comprehend the difference is to take a spare drive, create a cloned backup, and see for yourself how it works.
I think you'll like it.

 

[old-wiz]

The difference is that with a cloned backup, you can "boot to the finder" and it will be an EXACT COPY of your source (internal) drive.

You can run applications.
You can diagnose problems.
You can restore one file, part of the drive, or the entire drive if you wish.

With TM, you can [kind of] boot -- but what you'll get is something like the recovery partition, with very limited options.

With a cloned backup, again, you get a FULL BOOT to the finder.

The only way you're ever going to fully comprehend the difference is to take a spare drive, create a cloned backup, and see for yourself how it works.
I think you'll like it.

My wife had somehow corrupted her system disk on her mini. However I restored it from a SuperDuper clone and all was well.

 

[komatsu]

Time Machine is a program which Apple should make bulletproof but as you've already seen it has way to many reliability problems.

Another thing about Time Machine which I've noticed it never works when you really want it to work. If you have a dying Macbook or iMac and your really need to make a backup - TM can be guaranteed to let you down...!

(It's great when it does work however...)

 

[Henri9009]

CCC advices me to copy on a bootable volume. Obvious.

Though, I'm having problems (Google searches) to find the information: how to know if a disk is already bootable?

If not, is it possible to convert an existing drive (with files on it) bootable?

Thanks!

 

[Fishrrman]

"CCC advices me to copy on a bootable volume."

Make sure that the "target disk" you're using for CCC is formatted to HFS+ with journaling enabled.
(You have to erase it with Disk Utility to do this)

 

[Henri9009]

Can I put some other files on that CCC backup disk (personal stuff)?

Could it cause a problem if I do a restore?

Thanks and have a nice weekend!

 

[Fishrrman]

"Can I put some other files on that CCC backup disk (personal stuff)?
Could it cause a problem if I do a restore?"

I believe CCC has an option to do this called "Safety Net" (on my copy of CCC).
If you switch safety net to "on", it says that "modified and deleted files will be cached as space allows on the destination".
There may be a couple of other options to set this up as well.
DISCLAIMER: I have never tried this, so I have no report on how it actually works.

My advice:
DON'T do what you ask above.
Set up a CCC cloned backup to be nothing more than "a bootable cloned backup".
It works wonderfully IF you do it this way.

Keep loose files, etc, on ANOTHER DRIVE that is specifically intended for that purpose.

IF your backup drive is large enough, you could partition it, with one partition serving as your cloned backup, and another as "free storage space".
I -do- use CCC to create backup clones on partitioned drives. No problems that way...

 

[Henri9009]

Good idea!

Thanks!

 

[Henri9009]

I just want to be sure, and secure.

I intend to use these backups to restore in case of a main HD crash or another problem (finally, the same way as Time Machine).

So, tell me if I'm wrong, I don't need to create a Recovery HD partition?

Thanks!

 

[Weaselboy]

So, tell me if I'm wrong, I don't need to create a Recovery HD partition?

You don't really have to, but there is no reason not to create one. That way if you need to use the CCC clone to restore to a new drive, you can also use the CCC disk to put a recovery partition on the new drive.

 

[Henri9009]

I'm gonna try an OS update... so with CCC it's 100% sure I can go back (if I don't like it because of problems and
complications)?

Thanks!

 

[Fishrrman]

"I'm gonna try an OS update... so with CCC it's 100% sure I can go back (if I don't like it because of problems and complications)?"

Yes.
There IS NO BETTER WAY to do this.
Try it... and see for yourself.

 

[Henri9009]

I used CCC for backing up. It worked fine!

One question: if I ever want to use it again, can we use a "version" of backups (like TM)? I didn't see anything (any choice) related to that.

Thank you!

 

[Fishrrman]

Every time you run CCC, it will "incrementally update" the backup clone -- to always keep it an EXACT COPY of your internal drive (at the time you backed up).

If you want to keep older files around (files that you have either deleted from or changed on your source drive), you can turn "the safety net" on.
Once you do this, CCC will keep "older and deleted files" in an "archive", so they can still be accessed.
The clone itself will still be maintained.

CCC is not intended to be "an app you run once".
You should run it frequently, at least once or twice a week.
Or daily.