Which Carbon Copy Cloner backup is the best?

I want to restore my iMac to a CCC backup. Which is the best type of backup to use? Should I use a regular "backup everything" or should I create a "disk image"?
Any help. Thanks!

Do I have to create a partition on it for CCC or is that just a reccomendation?
You only need as much space for CCC (or SuperDuper) that your boot deivce is using, although if you want to keep updating the clone, then the space you reserve for CCC should be as much as the size of the boot device.
If your external 1TB is much large than your boot drive, then you can partition it so that one partition is sized for your boot device, and the rest you can use form something else (although unless that something else is backed up somewhere else, that something else is at risk ).
Have you ever restored an HD from a CCC backup? What is the process? Thanks!
The CCC (or SuperDuper) clone is a bootable device that is an exact copy of your boot drive at the time you ran CCC.
So you boot from the clone (boot holding the Option key, then select the clone to boot from, or use System Preferences -> Startup Disk to select the disk to boot from.
Once your booted from your clone, you just run CCC (or SuperDuper) selecting the Clone as the source, and your internal disk as the destination. Basically just use CCC as your would normally, except reverse the source and destination.
I have not used CCC to restore, but I've used SuperDuper lots of times, to either recover from an old PowerPC Mac that kept corrupting my boot drive, or to replace my boot drive and use SuperDuper to copy my system to the new replacement drive, or if I wanted to repartition my boot drive, I clone it, then repartition, then restore to the new boot partition.
NOTE: Your external drive MUST be a GUID partition table. Applications -> Utilities -> Disk Utility -> Partition -> Options

Similar Messages

External Hard Drive Unreadable After Carbon Copy Cloner Backup

I am using a Maxtor OneTouch III Media external drive. I had formatted it to be read/writeable from Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger, and had been reading and writing files fine. Then I did a system backup to the external drive with Carbon Copy Cloner. Now when I plug the drive into the USB port, it says "the disk you inserted is not readable by this computer." I am guessing that Carbon Copy Cloner may have messed with the file system format. I had some pretty important files on there and would like to retrieve them, so I'd prefer not to reformat.
Disk Utility shows this information for the drive:
Name : Maxtor OneTouch III Media
Type : Disk
Disk Identifier : disk1
Media Name : Maxtor OneTouch III Media
Media Type : Generic
Connection Bus : USB
Connection Type : External
USB Serial Number : RA09E5XC
Writable : Yes
Ejectable : Yes
Mac OS 9 Drivers Installed : No
Location : External
Total Capacity : 149.1 GB (160,041,885,696 Bytes)
S.M.A.R.T. Status : Not Supported
Disk Number : 1
Partition Number : 0
Also, Partition Scheme : Unformatted
I know that the drive had a name (besides the generic "Maxtor OneTouch III Media) before I did anything with Carbon Copy Cloner. Is my data already gone?
Message was edited by: theleez

Hi , and a warm welcome to the forums!
I think the problem is more the One-touch, they can't boot PPC Macs even via Firewire.
I think you'll have to Reformat it again... did you maybe use GUID Partition Scheme the first time?
See this, except for the GUID part...
http://carlbach.blogspot.com/2008/02/maxtor-one-touch-iii-and-formatting-on.html

Restore iMac to Carbon Copy Cloner backup

I'm going to restore my iMac HD to a CCC backup and need help. Do I boot into the Recovery HD (Command+R) and restore from Disk Utility? Thanks!

Do I boot into the Recovery HD (Command+R) and restore from Disk Utility?
No, not if you want to perform a complete restoration of the iMac's internal HD from the clone.
The best way is to use Startup Manager to boot your iMac from the clone. That way it will be obvious which is the "source" and which is the "target".
To restore the iMac's internal HD, you will be erasing it first - which means, at least for that period of time, you will have only one copy of what was backed up, so act accordingly. Your subsequent action will be identical to that of creating the clone.

MacPro wont back up to Time Machine or Carbon Copy Cloner?

I am running 10.6.8 on my 2 x 3 Ghz Intel Mac Pro with 10 Gb of Ram. I have been backing up my two internal drives to an external 2 Tb WD for over a year using time machine and it would lose the drive every once in a while but I could get it back. Now after multiple erasures and reformats I can't get Time Machine or Carbon Copy Cloner (not at the same time : ) ) to run any faster than 1Gb/13min. Just my big ol' music drive will take 6 days at that speed!
I know there is something wrong for these speeds to be this slow. Does anyone have any suggestions of ways to speed up transfer and get the data flowing freely like it should or even theories about what's going on? I am using USB 2.0 from the drive to the tower. Cheers.

First what interface did you use? USB2? can't and expect any decent backup performance and forget zeroing a drive. FW800? on some WD MyBook, yes.
I would if possible move it into a FW800/400/eSATA drive case from OWC.
Add a PCIe SATA + USB3 CalDigit card and use that.
Move the drive inside an option? some WD MyBook can't, were built around the external drive case.
Your profile is out of date 10.4.11 is way old and didn't include TimeMachine (10.5 Oct 2007)
Lion and ML are better at Disk Utility and managing disk drives.
I use WD Green, very inexpensive, but no MyBook (yet, maybe USB3 NAS some day).
Why keep your data on one drive that has been beaten to death and not try a WD Black or couple other drives - or do you have those just not listed? Clone your system, clone your data, and even a spare TimeMachine... but I would go with two system backup drives. That is safe, and covers anyone's important system and media and digital library needs.

Carbon Copy Cloner Vrs. Mac Disk Utilityy

Somebody with experience may be able to answer this: I'm lookng at cloning disk images from the internal drive to external FW dirive. i can do the same thing with the Apple Disk utility, or with Caron Copy Cloner. As near as I can tell, the only advntage that Carbon Copy Cloner has is the ability to schedule the disk image creation.
But, here's the problem. The last time I burned a clone disk image to my external drive, it took about 10 hours! That kind of makes the method not so practical. Can CC Cloner do it faster, or just schedule and automate it for me?
Thanks
iMac 20" Mac OS X (10.4.7) Long Live the Mac!

Hi
At risk of sounding like a parrot, I too recommend using SuperDuper!.
Kevin's right. The best thing to do is partition your external HD (if very different in size from your internal) so that you have a partition that is the same size of your internal HD, and then make a bootable clone of your internal HD on that. Subsequent updates using the licensed version of SuperDuper! typically take less than ten minutes.
Matthew Whiting

I have an iMac 2013 running OSX 10.9.4. I want to use Carbon Copy Cloner to backup user files to an external hard drive. Then I want to remove iPhoto libraries from iMac. What will happen to the iPhoto libraries that I back up when I run backup in a

I have an iMac 2013 running OSX 10.9.4. I want to use Carbon Copy Cloner to backup user files to an external hard drive to free up space on my iMack Hard drive.
So, say I make the backup today, delete iphoto libraries from my iMac, and then backup my iMac in a week. What happens to the iphoto libraries that are on the external backup drive now that I am backing up the iMac where they no longer exist?
I will have them backed up to a separate second external drive as well.
I'm just very cautious about removing them from the hard drive.
Thanks for helping and understanding my crazy caution!

I'd like to store my Aperture /IMovie Libraries on an external hard drive.
That is fine and recommended.. use the fastest disk you can afford.. ie Thunderbolt>USB3>FW800>USB2.
In addition, I'd like to partition the external hard drive so that Time Machine can use it to both back up my IMac and the external library drives.
Let me be clear.. you want to partition the one disk.. use it for TM and move your files to the external disk.. and then backup to the same disk.. You can do it.. but that is not a backup.. that is an experiment in how long you can get away with running files and backups on the same disk before you lose everything.. like Russian Roulette.. pull the trigger enough times and laws of probability will do you in.
You must have backups on a different disk .. otherwise it is pointless.
Can I set up a RAID 5 format for redundancy?
No.. you can buy special USB and Thunderbolt external drives that support RAID..
BUT that is still not a backup.. let me show why.. you make a silly move and corrupt your file in aperture.. it is not that rare.
Raid will corrupt all copies of the files.. it is replicated across all disks.
Delete a photo it is deleted across all disks.. you have no recovery.
Alway, always consider RAID system one disk.. backup onto another disk.. and if the photos or movies are at all important to you.. ie your family .. make another copy and store in a relatives house.. There is no such thing as too much redundancy.

SuperDuper or Carbon Copy Cloner, which one to use in my case?

Let me start of my saying what i am going to be doing...
Right now i have Panther on my Mac, i am going to install Leopard and do a clean install which will erase everything on my Mac's HD, so i bought a external FireWire HD to backup all of my files , i was actually just going to backup my music, pics & videos but then i was told that the best thing to do is to backup the whole HD (don't know why this is necessary).
So the carbon copy cloner is the most popular here on the forums while Super Duper looks like it's very simple to use, the only problem i see with Super Duper is that it's not Leopard compatible but i don't see that as a problem in my case since i am going to be using Super Duper with Panther and then i am assuming that i can manually drag and drop files i need ( music, pics and videos) back on my Mac's HD after i install Leopard, am i right here?
Please reply with any advice you have or suggestions, greatly appreciated if you will, thanks in advance.

Marat Voznyuk wrote:
i was told that the best thing to do is to backup the whole HD (don't know why this is necessary).
Because that allows you to revert to a known, good, bootable OS, in case your Leopard installation fails. It also allows you to simply use the Migration Assistant with a successful Leopard installation.

Best External Hard Drive for Carbon Copy Cloner?

I'm about to do a clean install of Leopard on my *Mac Pro* but I want to back up/clone my current system (10.4.11) to an *external hard drive* first. Based on the recommendations of similar users (Logic Studio) -- a clean install is preferable to an upgrade from Tiger to Leopard. I plan to use *Carbon Copy Cloner* to clone my current system but am unclear as to whether I can use an *external USB drive* versus an external Firewire drive.
Some people claim that firewire is much faster and more reliable for transferring/backing up data, and more importantly, that it's the only type of external hard drive one can boot from -- but I'm not sure that's true for these Intel-based Macs.
Also, I currently use an *Apogee Ensemble* audio interface which does not like sharing the firewire bus with other peripherals. I've also heard references to a external hard drive chipset called 911+ as being important but I think this may only be in regard to firewire.
Bottom line, _can I use an external USB drive with Carbon Copy Cloner on an Intel-based Mac?_
I'm looking for something around 500 Gigs that can sit on my desk with a minimal footprint. I'd like to partition it into three volumes -- the first for the Tiger clone; the second for weekly Leopard back-up; and the third for sound library storage. I'll likely need to access the third volume in realtime from *Logic Pro 8* (audio application) so the HD should be pretty fast. Recommendations?

So Kappy & Hatter...
Allow me to spell this out in practical terms. I'm installing Logic Pro, an audio production application. The consensus is that best results are achieved by installing the application on the internal system drive in bay #1 on the Mac Pro.
Most professional users of Logic Pro recommend a second internal drive in bay #2 solely for audio recording even though the app runs on the drive in bay #1. The drive in bay #2 is often a Raptor because of the 10,000 rpm spin rate, beneficial for the recording process.
For sound libraries with large audio samples/loops, often streamed to the app -- a third drive is recommended to store the sound library. It can be internal or external. Many people use external drives for this function on a firewire 800 bus. The emphasis for this drive would be to read quickly and stream the samples quickly. I would assume that a 32MB buffer cache versus 16MB would be beneficial. I was looking for hi-speed if I went the external route -- hence my foray into the realm of eSATA buses, but perhaps I should just get an internal drive for this as I do have drive bays available in the Mac Pro.
Can you recommend drive spex for this task or a particular hard drive for this task of storing and streaming the sound library?

Using Carbon Copy Cloner which is quicker firewire 800 Macbook Pro to external hard drive or Macbook Pro to same via Airport Extreme?

Using Carbon Copy Cloner which is quicker firewire 800 Macbook Pro to external hard drive or Macbook Pro to same via Airport Extreme?

Firewire 800 is the fastest and most reliable. Also it's bootable if you hold the option key down on a wired or built in keyboard. Not bootable via Airport obviously or if Filevault is used.
It's only your first clone that's usually takes the longest, it's shorter when it updates as you only do the changes which you can control to keep a pure clone if you wish.
Most commonly used backup methods

Carbon Copy Cloner: do you have to wipe the target drive

From reading the instructions that come with the download of CCC, it seems that when you clone your Applications drive to another drive (as backup), you are essentially reformatting that 2nd drive to be a copy of the first, right?
So when you use CCC, you must have a drive dedicated to becoming the clone? You would lose all data on the target drive? Correct?
If so, it seems to make sense to get a modest hard drive just to hold a clone of the cleanly reinstalled system.
I still am not clear on how to create a bootable clone on a drive, and how to restore that clone. Do you have to reinstall the operating system (and the various application files that also are installed at that time) and then somehow transfer the clone back to the original drive. Or somehow does the clone make it unnecessary to reinstall the operating system before moving the cloned copy of the os back to the Apps drive.
Whew, that's a tangled up understanding so if anyone can unravel this mess itd be great.
Also, is CCC better than making disk images with Disk Utility?

Jon:
Some of what I say will be repeating some of what has already been posted by way of giving a comprehensive response.
The two most popular and powerful utilities for backup/cloning are SuperDuper and Carbon Copy Cloner. Both have their supporters. Both are effective and relatively easy to use. The latest version of CCC is more powerful, but, I think, SD is easier to use. One of these is the first element in making a clone.
SuperDuper will erase the Destination drive before cloning. CCC gives you an option. You really want it erased, unless you are doing cumulative (SmartUpdates in SD) updates, or you will end up with a jumble of stuff. Both will do cumulative updates. CCC allows you to drill down to a single folder. SD allows you to clone the entire HDD, or just the Users Folder. Both make bootable clones, diskimages, compressed read only disk images.
You need an external firewire Hard Disk Drive. Get the largest you can afford and partition it. Since PPC Macs will not boot from USB devices, firewire is important. There are a lot of HDDs out there, some are sexy looking, some have one touch backup etc. The most important feature in a firewire HDD is that it should have the more reliable Oxford 911+ chipset. This is the part that interfaces the Hard Disk Drive with the computer. When it goes, and it does go on many of these drives after the warranty has run out, the drive itself may still be functional but the computer can't see it. Here is a list of HDDs from OWC that have the Oxford 911+ chipset.
You need to format the new HDD Mac OS Extended (Journaled) and, if it is larger than you need for backup, partition it. Dr. Smoke's FAQ Backup and Recovery has excellent tips on backing up, and has a suggested scheme for partitioning your new external FW HDD. If you need step-by-step directions for partitioning and formatting, please post back and ask.
Finally, once you have chosen your partition scheme, adjusting or deleting partitions would destroy all data on the drive except you use third party software.
Cloning is an excellent way of backing up as it not only gives you a backup of your data and total installation, but it gives you an emergency boot drive as well as a drive from which you can boot to run diagnostics and repairs on your internal HDD.
Please do post back with further questions or comments.
Cheers
cornelius

Considering FileVault usage on an iMac with OSX 10.6.7. Wanting to know more about strengths and weaknesses of Filevault with Time Machine, Parallels and Carbon Copy Cloner. Any negatives to consider before flipping the switch?

I'm considering FileVault usage on an iMac with OSX 10.6.7. Wanting to know more about strengths and weaknesses of Filevault with Time Machine, Parallels and Carbon Copy Cloner. Any negatives to consider before flipping the switch? Any information ?
Would specifically like to know:
Filevault impact on performance and application usability.
TIme machine impacts, and whether TIme Machine volume will also be secure?
Will a Cloned copy made with CCC be bootable, or usable?
Any other negatives to consider before turning this thing on?
Thanks,

Filevault impact on performance and application usability.
FileVault encrypts the user's home directory only - it is basically an encrypted disk image that is automatically opened when you log in and closed when you log out. It does cause disk accesses to be a bit slower so it isn't a good idea to use an encrypted account with sound or video or large graphics files. I have no experience with it with Parallels Desktop but suspect that you'd notice a bit of a slowdown. Note: in the User's directory you'll see a Shared Folder. Since FV only encrypts the user's directory you can put data you don't need encrypted in this shared folder which won't be encrypted.
TIme machine impacts, and whether TIme Machine volume will also be secure?
There are issues with TM and FV but how extensive they are with Snow Leopard I can't say, once I realized that TM and FV hadn't substantially changed between 10.5 and 10.6 I stopped dealing with it. When FV and TM were first introduced my testing led me to recommend using CCC or SuperDuper! for backing up.
Will a Cloned copy made with CCC be bootable, or usable?
Yes
Any other negatives to consider before turning this thing on?
Since FV is nothing more than a disk image - and disk images can fail - there are several problems with FV in my opinion. If an encrypted disk image fails it isn't possible to access any of that data. If you don't have a recent (undamaged) backup of the disk image and/or recent backup of the data within the disk image you are in a world of hurt. This isn't just a warning of possibility - this is a real danger that I've seen all too often at the shop where I have worked part time for a number of years.
At this time I strongly recommend that people who have sensitive data keep that sensitive data segregated from their general data and encrypt only the sensitive data or use other methods of locking it down such as saving on an external drive that is kept in a safe. Call me paranoid but I don't even keep all my sensitive data in one encrypted disk image. I use multiple disk images and keep multiple sequential backups. That way I might someday find that my up-to-date investments disk image won't mount but (a) I can go back a week to a backup and (b) that won't impact my up-to-date business records because those are in a different disk image

How can we disassociate an Apple ID from a set of computers formated from a single computer using Carbon Copy Cloner and a single image and then Migration Assistant to install their old profile? The original ID is the Apple ID for all the stores.

Here is a bit more detail.
We were replacing old teacher machines and wanted to do it as efficiently as possible. Therefore, we set up one computer, through the OS installation and ran all updates, and then made a disk image so that we can use Carbon Copy Cloner to image all the other computers without having to run all the other updates. Once they were set up to a base level and assigned to a teacher we used Migration Assistant to import all their old files and items. Everything has been fine until recently the computers became aware of needing an update for one or two apps. The machine asks for the original computer's Apple ID for all updates. We have logged out of the apple id and back in with another to test if running the updates will work with that Apple ID and even after a refresh it still asks for the other Apple ID. How can we disassociate the Apple ID from those other computers so that the individual who owns the original is not needed each time there is an update or has to give out their Apple ID password?

There are two parts to this:
1) It may be that you should have an Apple Education Support person helping you with this. If you have enough computers for this to be a problem, you may benefit from a Server, a site license, and an occasional visit from an Education Support Specialist.
2) The brief answer, if you want Individual Apple_IDs to control each computer, is to buy new copies of Mac OS X under those new Apple_IDs and re-download and re-Install. Mac OS X is customized to the Apple_ID before it is downloaded.

My mac mini does not boot, after backing the enire system onto an external drive with Carbon Copy Clone

My Mac Mini does not boot, after backing the enire system onto an external drive with Carbon Copy Clone. I had switched the start-up disk back to the original of course. Now all I see is the Apple logo. What should I do? Thanks in advance.

Try disconnecting any external devices, especially hard drives
and try rebooting.
If that doesn't help, then :
If you are running Lion, boot to the Recovery HD and run a
Repair Disk on the OSX partition.
If Snow Leopard, boot to the installl DVD and run Repair Disk.
Also, you may want to bookmark this:
http://reviews.cnet.com/8301-13727_7-57345273-263/troubleshooting-the-boot-proce ss-for-intel-macs/?tag=txt;title
for future reference. It is a pretty good explanation of the
Mac boot process and how to identify where problems may be.

Back up options? Time Machine or Carbon Copy Cloner? What's Better?

Hey guys,
I'm considering performing a clean install of OS X Mavericks on my macbook pro mid 2010. I've been having a lot of lag issues with opening/switching programs and slow browser performance (Safari, Google Chrome, Firefox). I'm currently using Time Machine to back up my macbook pro, but I recently heard of Carbon Copy Cloner as a back up option from the Apple community forums. What do you guys think is a better option? When I do a clean install of Mavericks, which backup option will give me the safest and quickest file transfer?

TM is a system backup, not an archive or best idealized "all data backup"
Carbon Copy and Super Duper are for making system clones for quick recovery of your internal HD
NIETHER are close to "best" or idealized data-only backups or archives, theyre both system emergency backups / restores.
External NAS or HD data collections are for your expanding data archives and backups.
Methodology to protect your data. Backups vs. Archives. Long-term data protection
Data Storage Platforms; their Drawbacks & Advantages
#1. Time Machine / Time Capsule
Drawbacks:
1. Time Machine is not bootable, if your internal drive fails, you cannot access files or boot from TM directly from the dead computer.
2. Time machine is controlled by complex software, and while you can delve into the TM backup database for specific file(s) extraction, this is not ideal or desirable.
3. Time machine can and does have the potential for many error codes in which data corruption can occur and your important backup files may not be saved correctly, at all, or even damaged. This extra link of failure in placing software between your data and its recovery is a point of risk and failure. A HD clone is not subject to these errors.
4. Time machine mirrors your internal HD, in which cases of data corruption, this corruption can immediately spread to the backup as the two are linked. TM is perpetually connected (or often) to your computer, and corruption spread to corruption, without isolation, which TM lacks (usually), migrating errors or corruption is either automatic or extremely easy to unwittingly do.
5. Time Machine does not keep endless copies of changed or deleted data, and you are often not notified when it deletes them; likewise you may accidently delete files off your computer and this accident is mirrored on TM.
6. Restoring from TM is quite time intensive.
7. TM is a backup and not a data archive, and therefore by definition a low-level security of vital/important data.
8. TM working premise is a “black box” backup of OS, APPS, settings, and vital data that nearly 100% of users never verify until an emergency hits or their computers internal SSD or HD that is corrupt or dead and this is an extremely bad working premise on vital data.
9. Given that data created and stored is growing exponentially, the fact that TM operates as a “store-it-all” backup nexus makes TM inherently incapable to easily backup massive amounts of data, nor is doing so a good idea.
10. TM working premise is a backup of a users system and active working data, and NOT massive amounts of static data, yet most users never take this into consideration, making TM a high-risk locus of data “bloat”.
11. In the case of Time Capsule, wifi data storage is a less than ideal premise given possible wireless data corruption.
12. TM like all HD-based data is subject to ferromagnetic and mechanical failure.
13. *Level-1 security of your vital data.
Advantages:
1. TM is very easy to use either in automatic mode or in 1-click backups.
2. TM is a perfect novice level simplex backup single-layer security save against internal HD failure or corruption.
3. TM can easily provide a seamless no-gap policy of active data that is often not easily capable in HD clones or HD archives (only if the user is lazy is making data saves).
#2. HD archives
Drawbacks:
1. Like all HD-based data is subject to ferromagnetic and mechanical failure.
2. Unless the user ritually copies working active data to HD external archives, then there is a time-gap of potential missing data; as such users must be proactive in archiving data that is being worked on or recently saved or created.
Advantages:
1. Fills the gap left in a week or 2-week-old HD clone, as an example.
2. Simplex no-software data storage that is isolated and autonomous from the computer (in most cases).
3. HD archives are the best idealized storage source for storing huge and multi-terabytes of data.
4. Best-idealized 1st platform redundancy for data protection.
5. *Perfect primary tier and level-2 security of your vital data.
#3. HD clones (see below for full advantages / drawbacks)
Drawbacks:
1. HD clones can be incrementally updated to hourly or daily, however this is time consuming and HD clones are, often, a week or more old, in which case data between today and the most fresh HD clone can and would be lost (however this gap is filled by use of HD archives listed above or by a TM backup).
2. Like all HD-based data is subject to ferromagnetic and mechanical failure.
Advantages:
1. HD clones are the best, quickest way to get back to 100% full operation in mere seconds.
2. Once a HD clone is created, the creation software (Carbon Copy Cloner or SuperDuper) is no longer needed whatsoever, and unlike TM, which requires complex software for its operational transference of data, a HD clone is its own bootable entity.
3. HD clones are unconnected and isolated from recent corruption.
4. HD clones allow a “portable copy” of your computer that you can likewise connect to another same Mac and have all your APPS and data at hand, which is extremely useful.
5. Rather than, as many users do, thinking of a HD clone as a “complimentary backup” to the use of TM, a HD clone is superior to TM both in ease of returning to 100% quickly, and its autonomous nature; while each has its place, TM can and does fill the gap in, say, a 2 week old clone. As an analogy, the HD clone itself is the brick wall of protection, whereas TM can be thought of as the mortar, which will fill any cracks in data on a week, 2-week, or 1-month old HD clone.
6. Best-idealized 2nd platform redundancy for data protection, and 1st level for system restore of your computers internal HD. (Time machine being 2nd level for system restore of the computer’s internal HD).
7. *Level-2 security of your vital data.
HD cloning software options:
1. SuperDuper HD cloning software APP (free)
2. Carbon Copy Cloner APP (will copy the recovery partition as well)
3. Disk utility HD bootable clone.
#4. Online archives
Drawbacks:
1. Subject to server failure or due to non-payment of your hosting account, it can be suspended.
2. Subject, due to lack of security on your part, to being attacked and hacked/erased.
Advantages:
1. In case of house fire, etc. your data is safe.
2. In travels, and propagating files to friends and likewise, a mere link by email is all that is needed and no large media needs to be sent across the net.
3. Online archives are the perfect and best-idealized 3rd platform redundancy for data protection.
4. Supremely useful in data isolation from backups and local archives in being online and offsite for long-distance security in isolation.
5. *Level-1.5 security of your vital data.
#5. DVD professional archival media
Drawbacks:
1. DVD single-layer disks are limited to 4.7Gigabytes of data.
2. DVD media are, given rough handling, prone to scratches and light-degradation if not stored correctly.
Advantages:
1. Archival DVD professional blank media is rated for in excess of 100+ years.
2. DVD is not subject to mechanical breakdown.
3. DVD archival media is not subject to ferromagnetic degradation.
4. DVD archival media correctly sleeved and stored is currently a supreme storage method of archiving vital data.
5. DVD media is once written and therefore free of data corruption if the write is correct.
6. DVD media is the perfect ideal for “freezing” and isolating old copies of data for reference in case newer generations of data become corrupted and an older copy is needed to revert to.
7. Best-idealized 4th platform redundancy for data protection.
8. *Level-3 (highest) security of your vital data.
[*Level-4 data security under development as once-written metallic plates and synthetic sapphire and likewise ultra-long-term data storage]
#6. Cloud based storage
Drawbacks:
1. Cloud storage can only be quasi-possessed.
2. No genuine true security and privacy of data.
3. Should never be considered for vital data storage or especially long-term.
4. *Level-0 security of your vital data.
Advantages:
1. Quick, easy and cheap storage location for simplex files for transfer to keep on hand and yet off the computer.
2. Easy source for small-file data sharing.
#7. Network attached storage (NAS) and JBOD storage
Drawbacks:
1. Subject to RAID failure and mass data corruption.
2. Expensive to set up initially.
3. Can be slower than USB, especially over WiFi.
4. Mechanically identical to USB HD backup in failure potential, higher failure however due to RAID and proprietary NAS enclosure failure.
Advantages:
1. Multiple computer access.
2. Always on and available.
3. Often has extensive media and application server functionality.
4. Massive capacity (also its drawback) with multi-bay NAS, perfect for full system backups on a larger scale.
5. *Level-2 security of your vital data.
JBOD (just a bunch of disks / drives) storage
Identical to NAS in form factor except drives are not networked or in any RAID array, rather best thought of as a single USB feed to multiple independent drives in a single powered large enclosure. Generally meaning a non-RAID architecture.
Drawbacks:
1. Subject to HD failure but not RAID failure and mass data corruption.
Advantages:
1. Simplex multi-drive independent setup for mass data storage.
2. Very inexpensive dual purpose HD storage / access point.
3. *Level-2 security of your vital data.

Can I Use Time Machine With Carbon Copy Cloner?

As of today, I upgraded my iMac (and eventually my Macbook) to Snow Leopard. I used Carbon Copy Cloner to create a clone of my drive to my external (I did a clean install) and now that Snow Leopard is installed, I only want to put back on to my computer just certain files, such as a select selection of my documents, some of my iTunes library, etc. Given that I couldn't find that option in Migration Assistant, I just manually copied over what I wanted from the clone on my external.
Still, I would like to keep a daily backup for my iMac's HD and that's where Time Machine comes in, but there's some questions I have before I do it:
Given that my iMac's HD now has significant free space (as I only brought back, say, 10% of the stuff to my iMac from my external when I cloned on CCC), if I enabled Time Machine to back up my iMac's HD stuff, it wouldn't overwrite the 90% of stuff on my external with the 10% that's on my iMac's HD, would it? For instance, I have about 20,000 songs on my external drive, but maybe have brought back only, say, 5,000 to my iMac (for now). Given that my iMac's iTunes Music folder shows 5,000 songs on it, when TM backs that up to my external drive, it won't overwrite the other iTunes Music folder which has the other 15,000, right? The same thing could be applied for documents, photos, etc. If not, how would TM deal with that? I would hope to avoid the other extreme, which are duplicate files/folders.
I guess I just want to be able to have the ability to get into that cloned drive on my external if I need to add more stuff to the iMac or if I need it one day to boot up the machine. But I also want to be able to have Time Machine at hand to back up daily the little that is on my iMac right now. So I suppose I'm wondering how can I achieve this without the two conflicting or screwing up?
Thanks!

MM1010 wrote:
when TM backs that up to my external drive, it won't overwrite the other iTunes Music folder which has the other 15,000, right?
Correct. Time Machine won't delete anything else on the same volume.
But as Barry says, it will use all the empty space available, before it starts deleting its oldest backups, so there will eventually be a conflict. See #3 in Time Machine - Frequently Asked Questions (or use the link in *User Tips* at the top of this forum). Also see #1 there, to be sure you have enough space for Time Machine to keep a reasonable "depth" of backups.
A better bet, however, would be to use a separate external HD. If you have the Time Machine backups on the same physical HD, when it fails (and they all do, sooner or later), you risk losing both.

Which Carbon Copy Cloner backup is the best?

Similar Messages

Maybe you are looking for