Using Time Machine along with Carbon Copy Cloner

[stanw]

I have an iMac with 4 external drives connected. My 8tb drive is no longer large enough to do backups. I’m thinking of using a 6tb drive to backup the iMac and another 6tb external drive and carbon copy cloner to backup the other two drives. Anyone have any thoughts on this? Can 1 drive be used to backup two separate drives with CCC?

Thanks.

 

[Juicy Box]

I use both CCC and TM, but I am a little confused about what your potential setup is and what you are asking.

To answer your question the way I think I understand it, can you use one Drive to back up two drives with CCC? Yes.

You can partition the one Drive, make two drives, and then use CCC to back up the two drives to the two partitions.

But, I have a feeling this is not the question that you are asking.

 

[stanw]

I think You got my question right.

I have 1 ssd in the iMac and 4 external 6tb drives. I previously used a single 8tb drive with time machine to back it all up. It is no longer large enough so now I’m thinking of using 2 separate 6 tb drives; 1 as the time machine backup to do the ssd and maybe 1 e thermal, and another 6tb drive with CCC to backup the other 2 external 6tb drives.

Does a single drive need to be partitioned in order to backup two separate drives with CCC?

Thanks.

 

[HDFan]

Does a single drive need to be partitioned in order to backup two separate drives with CCC?

Yep. CCC is a drive to drive to drive copy, although you can select the specific folders to be copied.

 

[Juicy Box]

Does a single drive need to be partitioned in order to backup two separate drives with CCC?

It depends.

CCC clones the drive to be identical, enabling the bootable original drive to be a bootable clone.

But, I believe that you can also back up non-bootable folders, although I have never done this.

In your case with TM drives, I would assume that cloned drives need to be bootable, so I think that you need them in their own partition.

I am not an expert on this, so if anyone else has a different opinion, let the OP know.

 

[Fishrrman]

I would not "mix" a TM backup and CCC backups on a single drive (with multiple partitions).

Keep your TM backups and your CCC backups "separated" on separate drives.

I WOULD (and do) partition a drive, and then put different CCC backups on individual partitions.
Works fine.

 

[HDFan]

But, I believe that you can also back up non-bootable folders, although I have never done this.

On the source side you have the option of choosing a full disk copy or just some files (folders). Not an option on the destination:

I would assume that cloned drives need to be bootable,

Nope. CCC will clone data only drives as well.

Keep your TM backups and your CCC backups "separated" on separate drives.

Absolutely. You don't want to lose all of your backups if your disk fails.

I WOULD (and do) partition a drive, and then put different CCC backups on individual partitions.

With a 2 partition destination drive I alternate CCC backups every other day so I have today's backup and yesterdays. The limitation is that if the drive fails I'll lose both, forcing a restore from a different backup destination.

 

[Juicy Box]

In your case with TM drives, I would assume that cloned drives need to be bootable, so I think that you need them in their own partition.

Nope. CCC will clone data only drives as well.

I am not sure what you mean.

I was referring to using a cloned Time Machine drive as a Time Machine drive, I would think that they need to be in their own partitions and cloned as if they were a boot dive. Is this not correct? Could enter Time Machine using just data copied to a partition with other non-TM data on it? I never have tried, but I also really don't like Time Machine all the much, as every time I used it to restore stuff, it was crazy slow.

With a 2 partition destination drive I alternate CCC backups every other day so I have today's backup and yesterdays. The limitation is that if the drive fails I'll lose both, forcing a restore from a different backup destination.

I do something similar on my main Mac, but with a bunch of bootable MacOS clones. I have two large external drives that has serval partitions on each of them. Every time I update to a new MacOS version, such as going from 10.8 to 10.9 for example or maybe a questionable minor update, I alternate the external drives and clone the OS to one of the partitions using CCC.

I do this incase I decided to go back to older OS for whatever reason, like trouble shooting. If something happens to one of the drives, I always have the other with about half the old versions of MacOS. I could just keep them all on one disk, and clone it, but I would run out of space too quickly.

 

[HDFan]

I was referring to using a cloned Time Machine drive as a Time Machine drive,

Carbon Copy Cloner won't clone a Time Machine volume:

https://bombich.com/kb/ccc4/can-i-use-carbon-copy-cloner-clone-time-machine-backup

When I refer to a data drive I mean a drive that just has data, such as pictures, music. No operating system files (kernel, extensions, applications, etc.), no recovery partition, just pictures, or music, or whatever. Not selectable as a boot device.

I would think that they need to be in their own partitions and cloned as if they were a boot dive.

Now I don't understand. Normally Time Machine backup volumes are not bootable.

"and cloned as if they were a boot dive"

Cloning is just that, an exact copy. If the source drive is bootable the destination drive will be. If the source drive isn't, then the destination drive won't. The only way I know to make a non-bootable clone bootable is to install MacOS after the clone. This will get wiped out on the next clone since those files aren't on the source drive, although there are some settings in CCC that might allow you to preserve the boot files.

 

[Juicy Box]

I was referring to using a cloned Time Machine drive as a Time Machine drive

Carbon Copy Cloner won't clone a Time Machine volume:

Well, that explains that. Like I said earlier, I am not too familiar with backing up Time Machine, so I made some assumptions that were clearly wrong, one being that the OP using CCC to back up TM was to have a usable clone.

When I refer to a data drive I mean a drive that just has data, such as pictures, music. No operating system files (kernel, extensions, applications, etc.), no recovery partition, just pictures, or music, or whatever. Not selectable as a boot device.

Okay, that clears it up. I thought this was what you were referring to, but was unsure, as I was thinking it was an exact clone of the TM disk, which the link above says is impossible.

Now I don't understand. Normally Time Machine backup volumes are not bootable.

Also, my terminology was probably not correct, when I was referring to a "bootable" clone of Time Machine, I did not mean that TM was able to boot, I was referring to all extra and hidden files to make a TM clone "useable", for entering TM and restoring from TM.

But, according to that link, it is not possible to make a usable TM clone.

Cloning is just that, an exact copy.

I was referring to this:

operating system files (kernel, extensions, applications, etc.), no recovery partition,

Basically, any bootable file...

I tried to find it in my current CCC app, but it is much more simple and streamlined, but IIRC, the an old version of CCC had an option to preserve these type of files to enable a bootable clone. It was selected as a default I think, but I am pretty sure they were there. This was what I was referring to when making a non-bootable clone.

Or, maybe I am thinking of an old version of Disk Utility or Disk First Aid......

 

[HDFan]

You can copy a Time Machine backup to another disk:

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT202380