Backup strategy - Carbon Copy Cloner

rbro · Post by **rbro** » Thu Dec 11, 2008 5:52 am

Anyone here using Carbon Copy Cloner? I want to use something besides Time Machine (long story). I'd like to do some combination of cloning my internal HD on a weekly basis and daily incremental backups of my other important stuff scattered about on various drives. Anyone doing something similar with CCC?

muthafunka · Post by **muthafunka** » Thu Dec 11, 2008 6:06 am

Clone internal 1/week with CCC here but that's about it. Have also used it for externals when they didn't want to do a straight copy properly for some reason. Great tool. Good on you for doing it, madness not to.

rbro · Post by **rbro** » Thu Dec 11, 2008 6:09 am

muthafunka wrote:Clone internal 1/week with CCC here but that's about it. Have also used it for externals when they didn't want to do a straight copy properly for some reason. Great tool. Good on you for doing it, madness not to.

I was using Time Machine, but I'm sick of it. Gonna give CCC a go.

scientist · Post by **scientist** » Thu Dec 11, 2008 6:36 am

time machine is a p.o.s. with ccc you can clone the entire drive once, then subsequent backups you can set it to only copy alterations. there's also super duper but i haven't used it.

rbro · Post by **rbro** » Thu Dec 11, 2008 6:40 am

scientist wrote:time machine is a p.o.s. with ccc you can clone the entire drive once, then subsequent backups you can set it to only copy alterations. there's also super duper but i haven't used it.

That's where I get lost. Can I make incremental backups to the target drive once there is a bootable clone on it, or does it need to be to a separate volume? Also, I need to backup stuff from multiple drives (not full clones, but incremental backups of my Live sets, samples etc. for example). Can I do that all to the same volume that contains my bootable clone?

scientist · Post by **scientist** » Thu Dec 11, 2008 6:48 am

the clone has to be its own, entire partition. i don't think it can save multiple versions like time machine. but unlike time machine, the backup is fully bootable and readable by other systems as a disk, unlike the bs you have to go through just to look at a time machine backup's contents. did i mention time machine is bullshit?

rbro · Post by **rbro** » Thu Dec 11, 2008 6:53 am

scientist wrote:the clone has to be its own, entire partition. i don't think it can save multiple versions like time machine. but unlike time machine, the backup is fully bootable and readable by other systems as a disk, unlike the bs you have to go through just to look at a time machine backup's contents. did i mention time machine is bullshit?

OK. So I can have 1 partition for my bootable clone and then like once a week, just schedule a task to overwrite that clone with a new one from my internal HD, so I'll always have a bootable version of my working system that's no more than a week old. Then on another partition I can do daily incremental backups of specific volumes and directories-similar to TM but without the eye candy BS?

scientist · Post by **scientist** » Thu Dec 11, 2008 7:04 am

rbro wrote:OK. So I can have 1 partition for my bootable clone and then like once a week, just schedule a task to overwrite that clone with a new one from my internal HD, so I'll always have a bootable version of my working system that's no more than a week old. Then on another partition I can do daily incremental backups of specific volumes and directories-similar to TM but without the eye candy BS?

it doesn't overwrite the entire clone, just adds to / deletes a la time machine. i'm not even sure it can be scheduled, i just have the good habit of running it a lot. if you need incremental backups in addition, time machine may be the best option...or something in super duper may do what you want. ccc is limited, but works great for bootable clones and is free.

Newecho · Post by **Newecho** » Thu Dec 11, 2008 7:57 am

rbro wrote:Anyone here using Carbon Copy Cloner? I want to use something besides Time Machine (long story). I'd like to do some combination of cloning my internal HD on a weekly basis and daily incremental backups of my other important stuff scattered about on various drives. Anyone doing something similar with CCC?

I realize your on Mac, but I thought I'd share a post I recently wrote for Windows. The drives in question and the strategy might still be helpful on both platforms.

Step 1 - Create Hit Song, Step 2 - Backup Your Data!

rbro · Post by **rbro** » Thu Dec 11, 2008 3:48 pm

Hmmm. I cloned my internal HD last night and it looked OK, but now the cloned drive is "read-only". I can't copy anything else to it. Is that normal or did I mess something up?

vicz · Post by **vicz** » Thu Dec 11, 2008 4:21 pm

I have always found Superduper to be quicker and more reliable than CCC. The free version lets you clone entire disks. If you pay to register it you can clone changed files only, which is much faster, and still leaves you with a bootable disk.

http://www.shirt-pocket.com/SuperDuper/ ... ption.html

doc holiday · Post by **doc holiday** » Thu Dec 11, 2008 4:27 pm

scheduled cloning would be a really bad idea.
what if you update and its wacked but you don't realize until after that schedule kicks in and you end up with a wacked system drive and a wacked clone.

i use different cloning tools myself, the important thing is to do it and test it.

I clone before updating or installing new software. i backup my data to tape daily.

sparklepuff · Post by **sparklepuff** » Thu Dec 11, 2008 4:30 pm

vicz wrote:I have always found Superduper to be quicker and more reliable than CCC. The free version lets you clone entire disks. If you pay to register it you can clone changed files only, which is much faster, and still leaves you with a bootable disk.

http://www.shirt-pocket.com/SuperDuper/ ... ption.html

Funny, I had many more failures with Super Duper, and it took FOREVER, but CCC has been reliable 100% of the time, and clones crazy fast. It gets my vote 100%. Fuck time machine.

rbro · Post by **rbro** » Thu Dec 11, 2008 4:45 pm

doc holiday wrote:scheduled cloning would be a really bad idea.
what if you update and its wacked but you don't realize until after that schedule kicks in and you end up with a wacked system drive and a wacked clone.

i use different cloning tools myself, the important thing is to do it and test it.

I clone before updating or installing new software. i backup my data to tape daily.

Well I would be sure to test any updates thoroughly before letting the schedule run. I just figured I can set it to clone at like 3am Monday morning every week and I'll always have a fairly up to date clone available.

spjuver · Post by **spjuver** » Thu Dec 11, 2008 5:51 pm

Cloned my old 150Gb hardrive to a brand new BIG one yesterday with Super Duper. It took 2.5 hours without any errors. Super simple design. Works excellent

Backup strategy - Carbon Copy Cloner

Backup strategy - Carbon Copy Cloner

Re: Backup strategy - Carbon Copy Cloner