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Mac Backup

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Brooklands

Brooklands

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I recently found that my external drive with all my photographs was starting to have problems. I bought a replacement SSD, but when copying the 3,99TB, the old drive would shut down and I would have to start over. I finally downloaded a trial of Carbon Copy Cloner and was able to copy everything. Now my question is, does anyone have experience with using this software instead of TimeMachine? I have a 10TB backup drive, and I wondered it CCC would be a better option.
 
I use a 2-pronged approach to backing up my Macs. I'm not particularly a fan of Time Machine, so I use Carbon Copy Cloner and Backblaze (an online service). Carbon Copy Cloner is a great way to get a copy of your mac, I use it for my home Mac and my work Laptop.

I also subscribe to Backblaze for my computers. It's an online backup service I've used for a number of years. There is an annual cost per computer, but it's not too bad and includes unlimited storage. Piece of mind should the house burn down.

Essentially I rely on Backblaze as my main backup option, and try to remember to do a drive clone with Carbon Copy Cloner once a month as a backup to the backup. This actually reminds me that I need to do another one soon.
 
Thanks Drew,

I use CrashPlan Small Business for cloud backup, and possible fire loss is probably my main reason. I will try using Carbon Copy Cloner in place of TimeMachine before I buy the program.

I appreciate hearing that CCC is a great alternative.
 
CCC has been around for years, that always inspires confidence. I've also had CCC notice that I had some corrupted files, which led me to figure out that my drive was failing.
 
In addition to a second external drive for backup, I also subscribe to Backblaze.
 
If your system (hd, cpu, etc.) dies, how do you get the Cloud copy (e.g. Carbon Copy Cloner file) back onto your system? Don't you have to have an OS just to connect to the Cloud? and then wouldn't the Cloud copy have problems over-writing your newly installed OS?

(I've never understood how to restore a system; files yes, but full system no.)

Thanks.
Tom M.
 
In many cases you can actually boot your computer from a Carbon Copy Cloner cloned drive. There are some complications with newer Macs based on some security pieces, you'd need to see the instructions.

If you can't do that, in the event of a drive failure you will need to put in a new hard drive and reinstall the OS. Once the computer is up and running you can use the backups to recover your files. In most cases I don't assume the backup is complete as far as the basic operating system and apps goes -- my concern is my data. Documents, music files, etc. That's really all that BackBlaze backs up, just the data. I would expect to have to reinstall the OS and apps, and have the backups to get to the data.

I use 2 backup options (BackBlaze and CCC) just in case one of them has issues. I've faced that problem before when a backup got corrupted, and it's an unpleasant feeling when you realize that the backup you need isn't there. :sick:
 
Thanks Drew. Can I PM you with some detail questions?
Tom M.
 
Absolutely, happy to help the best I can.
 
Not sure if its available for Mac but on windows i use Paragon,
Just leave a spare hard drive connected inside the PC and clone the main hard drive to the spare hard drive,
this make a perfect copy including the OS.
If the main hard drive fails, just unplug the main drive and it will boot from the spare.
connect a new ssd and clone it back to the new drive.
 
Thanks Mezy. Having that spare drive ready and cloned sure makes it simpler. Looks like Paragon is worth checking out. Back when I ran a university network, we had RAID (Redundant Array of Independent Disks) systems: two disks running in parallel. One fails, the other automatically takes over.

(Just got power, phone, and internet restored, 4pm EST)

Tom M.
 
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