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Swapping out hard drive - Time Machine vs Super Duper vs Carbon Copy

MoodyM

MoodyM

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Aug 14, 2008
778
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I'm about to swap out my 1TB Toshiba 5400rpm hard drive from my Mid-2010 17" MBP, and replace it with a brand new 750GB Seagate Momentus XT one.

I have a full Time Machine backup.

Is there any advantage/disadvantage to using Time Machine over, say, SuperDuper or CCC to migrate the drive across?
 
My advice would be to make sure you don't have more than 750GB used on your original 1TB drive....make a bootable clone using CCC, test that it'll boot and you're done.
 
Taking in account.....

only my personal experience, CCC performs faster and with less errors than TM. Again, that is my user experience.

:):apple:
 
markmcrobie said:
I'm about to swap out my 1TB Toshiba 5400rpm hard drive from my Mid-2010 17" MBP, and replace it with a brand new 750GB Seagate Momentus XT one.

I have a full Time Machine backup.

Is there any advantage/disadvantage to using Time Machine over, say, SuperDuper or CCC to migrate the drive across?
Click to expand...

I always use Disk Utility. Copies hard drives just fine.

You have three drives anyway: The old drive, the new drive, your Time Machine backup. (If you don't have a Time Machine backup, do that first). You could just restore from the Time Machine backup to check that your backup is fine. And worst case you always got the old hard drive.
 
Migration Assistant

Here's what I did when swapped out my mid-2007 mbp HDD for a Seagate Momentus last year:

1) swap drives

2) put old drive in external SATA/USB. (They are very cheap to purchase.)

3) press option while turning your machine on, and boot from the external drive

4) install OSX

5) run migration assistant

The only problem I had was that MS Office wanted my serial number key, which I had somewhere.
 
markmcrobie said:
I'm about to swap out my 1TB Toshiba 5400rpm hard drive from my Mid-2010 17" MBP, and replace it with a brand new 750GB Seagate Momentus XT one.

I have a full Time Machine backup.

Is there any advantage/disadvantage to using Time Machine over, say, SuperDuper or CCC to migrate the drive across?
Click to expand...
Here's a simple approach:
  1. Buy an external enclosure and put your old drive in it.
  2. Install your new drive in your Mac.
  3. Boot from your old (external) drive by holding the Option key on startup.
  4. Use Carbon Copy Cloner to clone the old (external) drive to the new (internal) drive.
    You can use version 3.5.1 ($40) or 3.4.7 (free, and works well on OS X 10.6, 10.7 and 10.8).
  5. Boot from the new internal drive.
  6. Your now running on your new internal drive and your old drive is now an external drive, useful for backups or additional storage.
CCC will clone the entire drive, including the OS X recovery partition. SuperDuper won't. TM can't make a bootable clone at all.
 
Here's but one more recommendation to use CCC and let T.M. be.

CCC will create a bootable, cloned backup that you can TEST -- BEFORE you go through the trouble of installing the drive.

And once you take the old drive out, you can use CCC to do incremental backups to your "old" drive. Best way to handle the old drive is to get a USB/SATA docking station, it will allow you to add/swap _other_ drives in/out of the dock, as well.
 
Got a question on TM.

What exactly is "weekly backups for all previous months"?
I thought TM could only do hourly backups :confused:
 
I'll add to the CCC votes. When I installed my SSD I used CCC to clone my drive to the SSD attached externally. I then booted form the external SSD to verify that it was ok. I then swapped the drives and put the old drive in my fire safe.
 
Ddyracer said:
Got a question on TM.

What exactly is "weekly backups for all previous months"?
I thought TM could only do hourly backups :confused:
Click to expand...

To save disk space, it keeps hourly backups until it acquires over a week's worth, then saves only one per day of the oldest "days", then once it has a few week's worth of daily backups starts saving one "weekly" backup and deletes the other older daily backups.
 
CCC is all good and nice, but a new installation of the OS in combination with migration assistant lets you use a freshly installed system, if you don't mind the extra time it will need.
 
fhall1 said:
To save disk space, it keeps hourly backups until it acquires over a week's worth, then saves only one per day of the oldest "days", then once it has a few week's worth of daily backups starts saving one "weekly" backup and deletes the other older daily backups.
Click to expand...

Wow, that makes no sense. Yeah, definitely going for CCC.
 
Super Duper Works Well

I have used Super Duper to clone a number of drives as part of a replacement / upgrade of the HD in both laptop and desktop computers. The publisher provides clear instructions in the user guide. I highly recommend the program.
 
Ddyracer said:
Wow, that makes no sense. Yeah, definitely going for CCC.
Click to expand...

It does when you think about it.....you don't need hourly backups going back 6 months....or daily backups going back a year. Just wasting disk space. If you need to restore a file or folder from 6 months ago would any one from July 1st suffice or do you really need the one from July 1st at 9AM vs. the 10AM one?
 
fhall1 said:
It does when you think about it.....you don't need hourly backups going back 6 months....or daily backups going back a year. Just wasting disk space. If you need to restore a file or folder from 6 months ago would any one from July 1st suffice or do you really need the one from July 1st at 9AM vs. the 10AM one?
Click to expand...

No, that's not the problem. It's just not a weekly backup like it says, it saves hourly backups and then slows down and eventually saves a week worth. Don't like that.

I rather have it just update once a week and stay that way. Oh sure it's handy, but it sounds like it slows your system down.
 
Ddyracer said:
No, that's not the problem. It's just not a weekly backup like it says, it saves hourly backups and then slows down and eventually saves a week worth. Don't like that.

I rather have it just update once a week and stay that way. Oh sure it's handy, but it sounds like it slows your system down.
Click to expand...

Actually, I use a utility (3rd party) called "Time Machine Editor" and set it to only do TM backups 4 times a day (6AM, 12PM, 6PM, 12AM) but you could set it to do once a day or once a week if you like. I've used it since OS X 10.5 days and it's been a great tool for those of us that don't need hourly backups.
 
fhall1 said:
Actually, I use a utility (3rd party) called "Time Machine Editor" and set it to only do TM backups 4 times a day (6AM, 12PM, 6PM, 12AM) but you could set it to do once a day or once a week if you like. I've used it since OS X 10.5 days and it's been a great tool for those of us that don't need hourly backups.
Click to expand...

I heard about it. Sounds like TimeMachineScheduler which is a hack. Rather not take the risk even if isn't. I don't trust it, because i also don't trust TM not to screw something up.

CCC is the way for me.
 
Transferring Data From HHD to SSD

I needed to get some help, assistance, and advice with this. I have just finished my install and upgrade. I removed my optical drive and put a SSD drive in its place. I have also installed a clean copy of mountain lion as well on the SSD drive.

Q. What is the best and cleanest way to to get all of my information over from the HHD to the SSD?
Q. I really also need third party application to come over as well.

1. Restore lastest backup from time machine
2. Use Migration Assistant
3. Use Carbon Copy Cloner - I already know my parallels/windows virtual machine will not transfer over using this option.
 
I never used CCC but I'm a heavy SuperDuper! user. I create bi-monthly bootable backups to a dedicated internal hard drive. I also use Time Machine for incremental backups just in case I need a file or directory from a different time period.

If you're swapping hard drives, I recommend using SuperDuper! (or CCC) over Time Machine. It works great and everything will be just as it was.
 
aaw0701 said:
I needed to get some help, assistance, and advice with this. I have just finished my install and upgrade. I removed my optical drive and put a SSD drive in its place. I have also installed a clean copy of mountain lion as well on the SSD drive.

Q. What is the best and cleanest way to to get all of my information over from the HHD to the SSD?
Q. I really also need third party application to come over as well.

1. Restore lastest backup from time machine
2. Use Migration Assistant
3. Use Carbon Copy Cloner - I already know my parallels/windows virtual machine will not transfer over using this option.
Click to expand...

Since you have already installed the OS, there is no reason to recopy the entire OS over again, so just use Migration Assistant to move your data and apps over.

Make sure you have not already created the account you intend to import though as this makes a mess. If you have, create a temp admin account then delete the account you created and run MA from within the temp account. Once the import is done login to your real account and delete the temp account.
 
cledet said:
If you're swapping hard drives, I recommend using SuperDuper! (or CCC) over Time Machine. It works great and everything will be just as it was.
Click to expand...
The one drawback to using SuperDuper! is that it will not clone the recovery partition, whereas CCC will.
 
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