Summary
Carbon Copy Cloner v4.1.13 by Harvey Rubinstein Jan 2017
Website:http://bombich.com (been in business since 2002)
- Carbon Copy Cloner If anything happens to my Mac, I can always boot from that clone, and even restore it to the Mac. The app can mount external drives automatically before backups, and eject them.
- Currently, I use Time Machine to make a backup of my internal drive to a relatively small partition on a hard disk drive. I do these manually once a day because, as stated, I don't need historical data. I am also using Carbon Copy Cloner to make a bootable clone of the drive to an APFS volume on an external SSD, again once a day.
- How to backup your Mac: Carbon Copy ClonerDownload it here is a tutorial over Carbon Copy Cloner.
MSRP: $40
System Requirements: Mac OS X 10.8 through 10.12.6
If you require a bootable backup or if you ever need to restore system files, you must use an external hard drive enclosure attached directly to your Mac to create a bootable backup. Backing up macOS to a network volume. As described in this section of the documentation, CCC will only back up system files to or from locally-attached HFS+.
Overview & Conclusion
The purpose of CCC (Carbon Copy Cloner) is to make bootable backups (full or incremental) on any schedule you desire.
I have no reservations in recommending CCC to any/all users, regardless of their skill level. Without doubt, CCC is a 5 star application!
Parenthetical: The developer of CCC, Mike Bombich, is himself a clone. Well, an identical twin…
Review Details
In the spirit of full disclosure, for several years I used the principal competitive product, SuperDuper! (SD), and always found it first-rate; both from a technical and support perspective.
So why the change?
Well, the simple answer is that with the passage of time, and as my computer skills increased, I appreciated the extra capabilities CCC provided. But make no mistake, there are a few minor disadvantages; these are noted below.
But before I go too far, be advised, comparing CCC with the competition harkens to “Printer Wars”. Some/much of your decision (CCC or SD) will boil down to what you, the user, prefer. But as for me, I find CCC superior to SD Of course, YMMV (your mileage may vary)!
Downloading and installing CCC is easy-peasy and the set-up is quite intuitive. And if you have questions, their tech support responds within a day or two; often within hours.
Pros
CCC supports cloning of the Recovery Partition (SD does not).
Can customize to NOT copy selected files.
If (during a backup) CCC encounters a corrupted file or files, it will 'keep on going', trying to clone all the “good” files, then give you a report when it’s finished. SD would abort this cloning.
It is ideal for all levels, from beginner to genius.
I find that cloning back required less “cleanup” than does SD.
CCC respects Energy Saver Settings (on laptops).
Preferences & settings are easy to understand.
There are both simple and advanced settings.
There is a Safety Net feature that allows archiving those files replaced/updated in the target drive. Users can determine how much, if any, space is dedicated to this feature.
You can copy a Windows partition (but it won't be bootable).
Free 30 day trial, try before you buy.
License is for every Mac in your household.
Easy to edit tasks and their schedules.
Easy to customize backups, run scripts, etc.
Has a shell script to unmount backup disks upon copy so malware cannot attack your backups.
It is a perfect compliment to Time Machine.
Cons
- Clone History cannot be cleared per target volume. Rather, clearing the history clears all CCC History.
- SuperDuper! has a SandBox feature which is very nice for software testing; CCC has no such feature.
- SuperDuper! will backup a Time Machine, CCC will not.
- SuperDuper! is $12.00 cheaper.
Other
- Cloning time, via CCC or SD! is essentially identical.
- I know of no drive size constraints.
- Note: Not all hard drive enclosures are capable of booting Mac OS. Check with the manufacturer of your hard drive enclosure to verify that booting from the enclosure is explicitly supported.
In a delightfully predictable manner, Apple announced last Wednesday that macOS Mojave will be available on the Mac App Store on September 24. From the moment that Apple introduced Mojave to developers in June, we've been putting it through its paces to see what we can expect when Mac users apply the upgrade this Fall, and to get CCC 5 qualified on this new OS. We're happy to announce that CCC 5.1.5, available today, is fully qualified on macOS Mojave.
Getting Ready to Upgrade to Mojave
I say this every year, but it's worth repeating — before you upgrade to Mojave, it is imperative to understand that downgrading to your previous OS will be impossible without a bootable backup of the previous OS. Before you apply the upgrade, we recommend that you establish a bootable backup of your current OS on an external USB or Thunderbolt hard drive, then verify that you can boot your Mac from that backup disk. Before you pull the trigger on the upgrade, detach that external disk from your Mac and set it aside.
For more detailed advice on preparing for the upgrade and instructions on how to downgrade, check out this CCC knowledgebase article:
The one thing I would add to the 'getting ready' check list is simply a heads up to a behavior that we discovered in the upgrade process: When you apply the upgrade, the macOS Installer may delete snapshots from your startup disk. If you have been enjoying CCC's new snapshot support, be prepared to lose those snapshots on your startup disk. This isn't a showstopper, but it did come as a surprise.
When should I upgrade?
As with every major upgrade, I recommend that any users that rely heavily upon the availability of their Mac for work or other productivity consider waiting for a few OS updates before making the upgrade. The early releases are exciting, but with any excitement there's usually a bit of risk. Early adopters will surely find some shortcomings and bugs which will be resolved in the next few months with minor OS updates. Does this upgrade fix a problem that causes me daily grief? Will this upgrade improve my productivity or security, outweighing the time I may have to invest in fixing early-adopter problems? Those are the key questions I ask myself before applying any upgrade.
New Privacy Controls – Mojave adds some busy work
By default, Mojave will deny all non-Apple applications access to private data (Mail, Messages, Safari History, etc.). For anybody that bathes their Mac in a sea of malware, this will be a welcome default. For the rest of us that use a pretty straightforward, curated list of legitimate applications: Mo-hassle. To allow CCC to back up all of your data, you'll have to pre-approve CCC for that access. We put a lot of time and effort into dealing with this proactively in CCC, so when the time comes, CCC should walk you through this procedure. We document the matter comprehensively in this CCC knowledgebase article:
If you would prefer a simple 'CCC is trying to access your data, would you like to allow that? Allow/Deny' dialog – hey, so would we! I spoke with members of Apple's Privacy Team at Apple's developer conference in June, and I suggested offering such a dialog for notarized applications – apps that Apple has deemed to be free of malware. They were adamant that users should not get a simple dialog; they want it to be hard for you. If you're feeling Mo'hassled by Mo'jave, let Apple know that you'd like a simpler UI for granting full disk access to notarized apps.
Dark Mode Support
Carbon Copy Cloner For Mac Os X 10.6.8
We started implementing support for Dark Mode the moment that we had our hands on the first Mojave beta. After a few hours, however, it was clear that supporting Dark Mode is not a simple matter of flipping a switch; we have to create a separate version of every graphic in our application and revisit every color choice. Offering backwards compatibility is also especially difficult. The best way to support Dark Mode would involve either creating separate interface resources for High Sierra+ users, or dropping support for Macs running an OS older than High Sierra. We do want to add support for Dark Mode, but considering all of the work (and $€£¥) involved and the impact on supporting older OSes, it's something that we're planning to roll into our next major set of interface changes.