Carbon Backup Mac



If the unexpected happens, you want to get back to work as quickly as possible with all of your data. Here is an elegant solution to backup you Mac and the pros and cons of Carbon Copy Cloner Vs Time Machine backups.

Carbon Copy Cloner is a bootable backup solution for the Mac. Suppose the unthinkable happens while you're under deadline to finish a project - your Mac is unresponsive and all you hear is an.

My Backup and Restoration Experiences

  • It requires setting up and it requires various companion apps, but you can control your Mac backup from your iPhone. ChronoSync 4.8.7 for Mac costs $49.99 direct from the developer and requires.
  • Back up your Mac. Back up with Time Machine. Automatically back up all your files with Time Machine, which is built in to your Mac, or choose another backup method. Create a backup. Store files in iCloud. You can also use iCloud and iCloud Drive to store files, such as your photos, documents, and music.

I have been an avid Apple user for over a decade. Between my wife and I, we have had over a dozen Macs. I have gone through the pain of a fail graphics card on both an iMac and a MacBook Pro. Neither of these issues were hard drive failures but both preventing my Mac from booting. So I was so happy that I had a backup of all our stuff. I have also upgraded to a new mac multiple times and wanted to have all of my data ready to go as quickly as possible.

How I Back My Computers Up and Why

There are a lot of ways to reach the backup solution that you want. I use a combination of backup methods and they are relatively transparent on a daily basis and best of all the software is free. My primary backup method is a Time Machine backup on a Synology NAS 412+. This Network Attached Storage (NAS) is used to back up an iMac, a MacBook, and a MacBook Pro all over ethernet or wifi automatically. Additionally, the NAS is not only used for backup it also hosts my Plex Media Server. I occasionally make backups using Carbon Copy Cloner or SuperDuper, usually using a free trial, or software that came with a hard drive purchase. The most common times I do a clone is when I am upgrading a hard drive or upgrading my whole computer.

You Should Ensure Your Backup is Backed-up

A down fall of backing up to a single drive is that drive could also fail. We have 4, 4TB hard drives setup using Synology Hybrid Raid (SHR). Which gives me a total of 12 TB of usable space with single hard drive failure redundancy. Now, this is not total backup protection, since it will not prevent loss from things like fire or theft. If you want an internet based backup method you are going to have to pay a subscription for it. Some good internet-based options are iCloud Drive, Google Drive, Dropbox, and Backblaze. Now, most of these services have free options, but none of which provide enough storage to backup most peoples computers.

Backup the Most Important Things Online

You can back up the most important things online for free, at least I can back up my most important things. If my house was destroyed in a fire, the most important things that I would want back off my computer are my memories. The pictures of my family are the most important thing on my computers. Everything else is just not that important. Fortunately, Google Drive will let you backup all your photos for free with no limit in “High quality”.

What the Difference Between High Quality and Original Quality For Google Drive?

You may be wondering why I said “High Quality”. Because Google Drive backs up your photos with two options “High Quality” or “Original Quality”. If you select “High Quality” Google will backup all your photos and they won’t count towards your 15GB, the curent free storage limit. If you choose “Original Quality” every photo will count towards your 15GB free limit. Here is the answer from Google on what happens if you select “High Quality” storage for unlimited storage.

  • Photos are compressed to save space. If a photo is larger than 16MP, it will be resized to 16MP.
  • You can print good quality 16MP photos in sizes up to 24 inches x 16 inches.
  • Videos higher than 1080p will be resized to high-definition 1080p. A video with 1080p or less will look close to the original. Some information, like closed captions, might be lost.

I think this unlimited picture storage is great, most of my photos are already under 16MP and most of my videos are under 1080p. So for the things that really matter, I can have a free cloud backup with unlimited storage. If they can’t convert the photo or video then it will count towards your data usage.

This is an Error I got for a few photos that couldn’t be reduced by Google Drive.

Carbon Copy Cloner vs Time Machine Benefits

The Main Benefits of Carbon Copy Cloner

You Have a Bootable Clone

This is the most advantageous benefit for Carbon Copy Cloner vs Time Machine. App store free download. If your original hard drive fails, your computer is stolen or damaged. You can plug your CCC backup into a computer and boot from it and it has all the information from the last backup.

The Backups are Fast

Well fast is a relative term, but CCC backup is touted to be faster than Time Machine and SuperDuper. The speed of your backup depends a lot on the hardware that you are using as well.

Very Customizable

Instead of ease of use, you get options galore. You may find this very handy that you can customize the backups to meet your needs.

Find and Repair Corrupt Data

CCC can check your backup drives health. Drive health is an advanced option and you must turn it on. This will add additional processing overhead, but will help ensure the health of your backup.

The Main Benefits of Using Time Machine

You Already Have Time Machine

Having a Time Machine backup can be very convenient, it is the easiest backup system to use on a Mac. It is built in very elegantly into Mac OS. For this reason, once Time Machine is running if you deleted something that you need to recover you can easily get it back with Time Machine. I have probably used this feature more than any other feature of Time Machine. Additionally, if you change a file and you want to get back the original file, you can do that as well.

This is what it looks like to “Enter Time Machine”

You Only Need One Additional Thing – A Drive

The only extra thing you need to get your Time Machine backup going is an external hard drive or cloud storage, the same as you need for any other backup system.

Time Machine Does all the Work – Set it Up and Forget It

Once you plug a drive into your Mac and go to format it, you will be prompt you to use the drive as a Time Machine volume. After you click yes, you are done with setup and your Mac will regularly back itself up to that drive. If you disconnect the drive, Time Machine will prompt you to connect the drive occasionally.

Create Multiple Backup Seamlessly

Your ease for setting up one backup is just as easy to set up two or more. Every time you format a new hard drive, the first thing you mac will ask is if you want to use it as a Time Machine backup.

Easy Encryptions

So you want your backups to be encrypted, Great! With Time Machine all you have to do is check the box Encrypt Backups when you setup Time Machine.

Carbon Copy Cloner vs Time Machine Drawbacks

The Main Drawbacks of Carbon Copy Cloner

Carbon backup macbook

Does Not Integrate with the Cloud

Now you may be able to create a volume with CCC that you can store on the cloud, but this is not a beginner process. Additionally it removes the primary benefit of having a ready to go bootable backup at your fingertips.

Does Not Create Encrypted Backups

CCC doesn’t in itself create encrypted backups, even if the drive that you are backing up is encrypted. There are work arounds, essentially, you will get your Mac’s built in File Vault to encrypt the drive and handle the encryptions. Making the drive encrypted takes a few additional steps and is not a beginner process you can find it here.

The Main Drawbacks of Time Machine

Hard to Customize

You have far fewer options to customize your backup method. There are third-party applications that can solve many of your desires for this. TimeMachineEditor is one third party application that allows you to change the backup interval and when Time Machine runs.

Slow Backups

The reason you may want to change your backup intervals is that backups are slow. Additionally, you may not want to waste time running Time Machine every hour while you are sleeping.

No Drive Health

Mac

Many of the cloning methods have system checks that are performed routinely on the drives that hold the backups. This is not the case with Time Machine. Though if you are using a NAS, which should have its own health checks or the cloud you won’t have to worry about this.

Not a Bootable Clone

Your Time Machine Backups are not bootable. Meaning you can’t just plug it in and use it as your primary computer drive. Instead to recover your backup or set up all your stuff on a new computer you have to use Migration Assistant.

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macOS’ built-in Time Machine is a fantastic way to easily back up a Mac, but it has its limitations. The utility’s archiving ability is extremely useful, but on the recovery end of things, Time Machine isn’t as flexible as power users may require their backup solution be.

Primarily, a Time Machine drive cannot be plugged in and booted from. Bootable backups can be great for quick turn-arounds in the case of a failed or replaced disk. Simply plug in the drive, boot your Mac with the option key held down, and boom — you’re off to the races.

The best way to make bootable backups of your Mac is Carbon Copy Cloner. It’s an excellent way to diversify your backups beyond Time Machine. Moreover, there are some advantages to having a bootable backup of your Mac.

(Obviously, you’re going to need a hard drive dedicated for this. We recommend one that is similar — if not the same — as your Time Machine drive for convenience, but just about anything will do as long as it’s equal to or larger in capacity than your boot drive.)

Unlike some nerdy utilities, Carbon Copy Cloner’s user interface is easy to use and understand.

Creating a Backup

Mac

Carbon Backup Macbook Pro

Creating a new backup task is pretty straightforward, but Carbon Copy Cloner offers a lot of customization. After clicking the + button in the sidebar, the interface shows three steps:

Source

Assuming you are backing up your Mac’s internal SSD or hard drive, select Macintosh HD. The drop-down menu offers two options: Copy All Files and Copy Some Files. The first is the way to go if you want a complete clone of your Mac. If for some reason you don’t, select the latter option and Carbon Copy Cloner will walk you through selecting what files and folders you wish to exclude from the backup.

Destination

This panel will let you select the hard drive you are backing your data up to.

The SafetyNet drop-down is worth addressing. Here’s how the developer explains it in the app’s help file:

When CCC copies files to the destination, it has to do something with files that already exist on the destination — files that are within the scope of the backup task, and items that aren’t on the source at all. By default, CCC uses a feature called the SafetyNet to protect files and folders that fall into three categories:

  • Older versions of files that have been modified since a previous backup task
  • Files that have been deleted from the source since a previous backup task
  • Files and folders that are unique to the root level of the destination

In short, this option helps protect you from overriding an old backup in a way that would remove a file you may need later. I have it enabled on my backups, and recommend you do as well.

However, if you always want the destination to match the source volume exactly, and you have no need for retaining older versions of modified files deleted from the destination since a previous backup, you can flip it off here.

Schedule

The last panel sets how often the backup should run. There are several options:

The time-based options are pretty self-explanatory. If the destination drive isn’t available at the time, Carbon Copy Cloner will simply try again later.

I use the last option: When source or destination is reconnected. Carbon Copy Cloner’s helper app is running in the background, and as soon as the destination drive (which is a portable USB drive I keep off-site) is mounted, the backup starts up on its own.

I like this option because it means I don’t have to remember to open Carbon Copy Cloner. I can just plug in the drive and let the utility do its thing without any intervention on my part.

Carbon Copy Cloner Mac Backup Wiederherstellen

Lastly, Carbon Copy Cloner can send you an email when the task is complete. It uses the email accounts setup in Mail.app. This is configured within the app’s Preferences.

Advanced Settings

The Advanced Settings section will let you set all sorts of things up, including custom scripts to run before or after a backup. The app can also be configured to prune the SafetyNet at a set size, but I leave the default Auto adjust option enabled.

Carbon Copy Cloner can be configured to eject the destination drive when the backup is complete and sleep, restart, or shut down the Mac after the backup task is completed.

Carbon backup - mac client

Creating a Backup

To create or update a backup, plug in the destination drive and ensure that Carbon Copy Cloner starts. This can be done via the settings of the task, as outlined above. Backup tasks can also be run manually by right-clicking the task name in Carbon Copy Cloner’s sidebar and selecting Run Now.

When a task is running, the main window of the app will provide feedback about what is going on:

Once the task is complete, you’ll be alerted. You can then eject the destination disk and remove it from the computer.

Recovery HD

Carbon Copy Cloner can create an archive of the macOS Recovery HD that is present on every Mac running 10.7 Lion or higher.

Carbon Copy Cloner can use this archive to restore the Recover HD at a later time, in case you replace your computer’s internal hard drive or have to completely reformat it.

Data Recovery

Backups are only as good as the data recoveries they enable.

As Carbon Copy Cloner-created disks are bootable, you can hold down the Option key when powering on a Mac and select your destination drive to boot from if your internal disk is failing.

Once booted from a destination drive, Carbon Copy Cloner will automatically open and walk you through restoring your data with a helpful, simple guide. In the guided restore, CCC will create a new restore task, select the startup disk as the source and copy your data back. It’s as easy as it gets.

Go Get It

Carbon Backup - Mac Client

Carbon Copy Cloner is regularly updated, and as of version 5 supports APFS, the new file system Apple introduced with macOS High Sierra.

Carbon Copy Cloner Bootable Backup Mac

You can buy Carbon Copy Cloner for $39.99 directly from the developer’s website.





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