Time Machine vs. Carbon Copy Cloner

 

Right. And during a CCC backup, is the computer fully functional or does it have restricted functionality? Can you run other software/programs, use the internet etc while the backup is taking place?

 

macs have been multitasking for many many years; you can run CCC, listen to music, surf the web, etc... all at once. and CCC, since it's doing incremental backups, is really fast.

 

Lovely. Thanks.

 

I'm slightly confused about one thing - CCC is cloning your entire drive so how can that be an "incremental backup"? My understanding of "incremental backup" is that only the files that have been modified since the last backup are going to be copied (firstly, if that's not the meaning of "incremeantal backup" then correct me please). Assuming that's correct, isn't that in contradiction with the creation of a full bootable clone of the computer's drive? I thought cloning a drive means copying absolutley everything.

it runs a comparison first and only copies what's new.

(you can also set it to mirror deletes)

it runs a comparison first and only copies what's new.

(you can also set it to mirror deletes)

 

yes. & i am in fact not cloning my drive (i don't copy the OS, or my apps), only my data (and some library files); i also have it set to mirror my drive, so it deletes anything on the backup that's not on the main drive (i prefer not to save files i don't want or need); this works (for me, not for everyone).

If cloning (not the incremental options) I let it do its thing and don't touch anything. A guys gotta drink coffee and take a toilet break anyway.

If cloning (not the incremental options) I let it do its thing and don't touch anything. A guys gotta drink coffee and take a toilet break anyway.

 

hopefully, that's two different things......

If cloning (not the incremental options) I let it do its thing and don't touch anything. A guys gotta drink coffee and take a toilet break anyway.

 

hopefully, that's two different things......

Hopefully or regretfully

Unashamedly, actually!

it runs a comparison first and only copies what's new.

(you can also set it to mirror deletes)

 

yes. & i am in fact not cloning my drive (i don't copy the OS, or my apps), only my data (and some library files); i also have it set to mirror my drive, so it deletes anything on the backup that's not on the main drive (i prefer not to save files i don't want or need); this works (for me, not for everyone).

 

 

 

Great.

 

So just to make sure I’ve got the terminology right -

 

 

Cloning is when absolutely everything on the computer’s drive is copied (OS, applications, files etc), right?

 

Mirroring is what exactly? The terms mirroring and cloning seem to suggest the same concept

 

 

……..well, actually mirroring technically suggests a flipped/reversed copy (like what actually happens when you look in a mirror) but I assume it’s not that literal in this context!

 

 

 

 

Also, if you do a clone backup with CCC am I right in saying that if your computer’s drive somehow dies, you can simply plug in in the backup hard drive you used for CCC and your computer will be able to run exactly as usual? It’s pretty important for me to get this part right because this is the reason I’m looking into CCC in the first place. This is what I need.

 

Thanks

CCC clones are bootable. My wife's computer occasionally crashes in the night (old laptop). The only way that we know it crashed is that the machine boots from the cloned drive and just "runs". One time it took a couple of days to figure she was running from the clone

 

Mirror/Clone/Copy all basically the same. CCC takes the steps necessary to make sure that everything necessary is done to have a bootable copy of your drive.

Cloning is where you take a 1-to-1 copy of the data onto another (removal) drive which could be used (If required) as a bootable backup. i.e. Carbon Copy Cloner. You can also clone to an image/.iso file which is a self contained file version of the source drive you have cloned. This can be written in full to a target drive in the future. i.e. you could save 6x 500MB .iso files onto a 3TB master hard disk - and pick any of those 6 to restore at a later date.

 

Mirroring is whereby the system continuously mirrors one drive to many others for protection against hardware failures, and these are either fixed in the system, or can be hot swapped - i.e. a RAID system.

 

Incremental backups are the heart of solutions such as Cloud services (Crashplan etc.), Time machine etc. But it's also offered in Carbon Copy Cloner software as an option, either scheduled or not.

 

The main difference in backup types that you need to understand is Full (Cloning) and Incremental modes, Incremental backups save the entire data set on the first run, but after that they store only day-to-day changes to that data set across a period of time set by the user.

 

The reason incrementals are so good is that you don't need as much space to backup many days data - in the example above a 500MB 100% Full partition could be saved 6x on a 3TB drive - whereas if you were using incremental backups there could be months of single days data held (Depending on what files change in that period).

 

The reason cloning is good is that you have a self contained bootable backup from the point it was made - and has a far better guarantee of recovery due to the 1-to-1 nature of the clone.

right. cloning copies everything, including all the OS files, so that you can boot, or restore, from the cloned drive. time machine copies everything (but you can choose to exclude things like the OS if you want); it also archives older files, and earlier versions of (updated) files.

 

when i back up, anything i've deleted on my imac (or archived-projects drive) also gets deleted from the backup; for me, less junk to sort thru; all i want is what i choose to keep; so am mirroring my internal and archived-projects drives to the backup.

Thank you for the replies.

 

In the event of your computer's drive dying, what would the process of booting up from a CCC backup look like?

 

You turn on your computer of course and presumably you connect the CCC backup drive to the computer via USB but then what? I've never seen what a Mac looks like when its internal drive has died. When you you switch on the machine, does it detect the backup drive you have connected and give you an option to boot from this backup?

as long as you've created a bootable backup, you hold the option key on startup, and should see that drive pop up. select it. and you should be in.

 

experience should be the same but... depending on the drive, could be slower...

as long as you've created a bootable backup, you hold the option key on startup, and should see that drive pop up. select it. and you should be in.

 

experience should be the same but... depending on the drive, could be slower...

 

Thank you

 

When you boot from a bootable backup drive, does that drive have all your plugins installed and ready to use with the corresponding ilok licenses present on the backup drive?

 

And for the plugins that don't require ilok licenses but instead are authorized just by pasting your serial number into the plugin when you first open it, are those plugins also instantly ready to go or do you have to reauthorize all of them?

in theory, it's a clone of your internal drive, so it should function exactly the same. but i've only tried this out, never got into using it for real (ie with logic)... so, might be good to hear from some others. possibly, some authorizations are tied to the internal drive ID (or something...)

I've had to run from a restored clone twice before, last time i had no such issues, but the time before that which was at least 7-8+ years ago i had a few plugins that were seemingly tied to the drive ID, even though it showed as a system or device ID at the time, sure it was IK plugins and they kept asking for authorisation even though i went through the process, had to telephone in the end. That was a true recovery after a failed drive too.

 

The ilok stuff carried through which i was most concerned about at the time, as the plugins can sometimes get locked on a different machine ID and you can't deactivate them unless you're that MachineID anymore, but a drive change didn't seem to affect that.

 

Everything else, wouldn't know any difference at all.

Great. Thank you

I travel a lot, recording and mixing on diferent locations - MacBook:

1. TimeMachine only for system - daw, settings, plugins, apps, mail, ...

2. CCC for all projects - some with SafetyNet on, some off, some manual, some on schedule...

 

I got multiple external backup drives on different locations.

 

Once you gonna have to restore your system from TimeMachine backup, you will have to sync online some plugins licenses again. Works great. I have no experience to use CCC for bootable drives.

 

MacBook Pro (15-inch, Mid 2012)

2,6 GHz Intel Core i7

16 GB 1600 MHz DDR3

Two drives inside:

1 TB SSD for system - TimeMachine

2 TB HDD [instead of CD-ROM] - CCC

Are you saying you use your internal SSD for the system drive AND the Time Machine backup? Or just saying that SSD is backed up via Time Machine to external device?

 

CCC for bootable drives works fine. Plugins running from a "cloned" drive all depends on how they control license.

Thanks for the replies. Is it ok have your backup bootable drive be encrypted/password-protected or would that cause a problem when you try to boot from it?

Here's my latest thoughts ...

 

• CCC gives you an absolutely-independent, "network free" ability to restore your system to a known previous state. And, for that, it is positively fantastic – as it has been for many years.
   
  
• Time Machine, meanwhile, gives you access to an extremely fine-grained ("it can time-machine your emails ...") incremental backup that "you can forget about." While you are working on your project, "it's got your back."
   
  
• Both alternatives do provide for "absolute-disaster recovery," although Time Machine (and the Recovery Partition) assume high-speed internet access.
   
  
• If you do "CCC-restore" from a less-than-recent backup, the "Software Update" and "App Store Update" processes can still bring you to the latest, as soon as you can get back on-line. (And "Time Machine" will magically find a way to update your files!)

 

So, the sheer beauty of it is ... "you don't have to choose!" Your topic-title should have used "and!"

Thanks for the replies. Is it ok have your backup bootable drive be encrypted/password-protected or would that cause a problem when you try to boot from it?

only a problem if you can't remember the password

Thanks for the replies. Is it ok have your backup bootable drive be encrypted/password-protected or would that cause a problem when you try to boot from it?

All my CCC backups are encrypted, which I consider critical since they could be easily filched or lost, and some are stored offsite. Booting from them is really no different from booting from an internal drive... yes you do need to remember your password!

100% encrypt for sure. Disk encryption just allows the drive to be locked/unlocked - once unlocked it operates as normal.

Are you saying you use your internal SSD for the system drive AND the Time Machine backup? Or just saying that SSD is backed up via Time Machine to external device?

 

CCC for bootable drives works fine. Plugins running from a "cloned" drive all depends on how they control license.

 

SSD [system and also recent projects] is backed up via Time Machine to external device.

 

I got in my MacBook also 3TB HDD [instead of CD-ROM] - so recent projects on SSD are every day backed up to this internal HDD - good old MacBook Pro...

HDD drive is backed up to external device via CCC. So it makes two physical copies of the recent projects on SSD.

 

If I would have just one SSD drive in my Mac, I would use TimeMachine with exception to my "PROJECTS" folder. And this folder I would back up via CCC, because it is faster. You can also make for each project CCC task with different options, schedule, SafetyNet on/off etc.

To me, the fact that "Time Machine just does it" – all the time, without you thinking about it – is huge. If it were me, I would especially want my "projects" to be continuously and silently backed up every hour or more.

 

And, if you simply want to "snapshot a project," you can ... drag and drop! (It should not be open in Logic at the time.)

To me, the fact that "Time Machine just does it" – all the time, without you thinking about it – is huge. If it were me, I would especially want my "projects" to be continuously and silently backed up every hour or more.

 

And, if you simply want to "snapshot a project," you can ... drag and drop! (It should not be open in Logic at the time.)

 

no harm in it. some of us just prefer to have control over when & how we back up (for example, if i delete something from my internal drive, i want that mirrored in my backup; i don't want everything saved... just what i choose to save).

 

i also like that, especially on a 'busy' project in logic (or final cut, for that matter), an app like time machine doesn't run because it 'wants' to.

 

whatever gets us backed up, that's all that really matters tho.