Backup using Carbon Copy Cloner

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Lucas Lang
6 years ago
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This article describes how to setup and run backups using Carbon Copy Cloner (CCC). Background A backup is simply a copy of your computer hard drive.

1 This article describes how to setup and run backups using Carbon Copy Cloner (CCC). Background A backup is simply a copy of your computer hard drive. CCC is a program that makes is much easier to make this copy of documents and folders from your Mac to an external device. That device could be a USB stick, a network storage device, or an external hard drive connected to the computer. CCC makes it easy to set the copy to happen automatically on a regular schedule. And finally it has the ability to ensure that copies are kept up to date as the documents change over time, and maintain versions of documents as they change. CCC is commerical software available for download and purchase from A single license will allow you install and use the program on any computer in your house. It is available as an unrestricted 30 day trial, which means you can use every feature in the program for 30 days to see if you like it. Page 1

2 Before you begin... You will need to have a few things done. 1. Download and install the program 2. Purchase an external device to store the backup copy. Do not use a USB stick for long-term backups - they are fine for short-term and quick copying/moving of documents but they are highly unrealiable and definitely not suited to a permanent backup strategy. If using an external hard drive be sure to get one that is USB3 capable. ACTApple also recommends not to get any drive that has proprietary software or hardware incorporated into the drive. For that reason we don't recommend Western Digital (WD) pre-packaged external drives such as "My Passport" or "WD Elements". These drives are built with hardware and software locks in them such that if they fail it can be impossible to retrieve any data without the use of specialist (expensive) data recovery services, and even if data is recovered the drive will rarely be able to be reused and would be thrown away. If in doubt check with the shop - the drive should have no requirement that you use proprietary backup software. 3. If using an external USB3 drive, initialise it using Disk Utility, and set the drive to be able to boot your Mac. Don't skip this step, or you may end up with a drive that can't boot your Mac. With those things done you're ready to start CCC and get going! Page 2

3 Start the program The program will install into your Appications folder. Go there and double-click the CCC icon to run it and you will see it's main panel. From here you can set up and control all your backup and copy operations. If you see an icon that says "Show Sidebar" then click on it - this will display all your copy tasks. Page 3

4 The main panel You should now see something like this. Page 4

5 Lets get started... If you don't see an "Untitled" task in the sidebar on the left then click on "New Task". Page 5

6 The first backup task click on the new task to highlight it. Page 6

7 Rename to something meaningful Now click on it again to allow you to rename it. Change the name to something meaningful for you. Whatever works, there's no limits on the name. Page 7

8 Quick start - setup your backup For a quick start that works perfectly well Drag your computer hard drive from the VOLUMES to the SOURCE 2. Drag your backup drive from the VOLUMES to the DESTINATION 3. Click on the SCHEDULE. Change the settings in the until you have a schedule that works for you (more details in the next step). 4. Confirm that "Clone" says "All files". If you can't set that, and it will only say "Selected files", then you've skipped the Disk Utility initialiation that I told you not to skip. You'll have to go back and do that, and start again. 5. Confirm "Safety Net" is ON. Confirm the says "Don't send " 6. Click "Save" And you're done. Your main panel should look similar to the one below and the summary "Task Plan" describes what will happen for you. The "Save" button changes to "Clone". You can click that now and the backup will run immediately. You can click "Clone" whenever you like - it will just do a backup on the spot and have no impact at all on the schedule you've set. The first backup will take a long time. It will 1. Compare all the files on the source and destination to make a list of what to copy. Of course of the first backup it has to copy everything, so the list will be large and take some time to put together. This step could easily take 30 minutes. 2. It will then start copying across. This step could take several hours. You can use your computer while the copy is happening but you may find it running quit a bit slower if you do. WE suggest that people let it run overnight. 3. When done CCC may ask to create a "Recovery HD". This is a special disk that helps if your computer has a problem. you should agree and let it create the Recovery HD. It will only ask you this on the first copy to an empty backup disk. 4. After all that you will have a bootable backup. 5. The next backup will run in just a few minutes. To find out, click "Clone" again and see - it should go through while you watch. The remaining steps in this document go into the parts of CCC in a bit more detail. Page 8

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Choose to be automatic It's critical that you set up a schedule. The frequency doesn't matter so much, that will simply depend on how much data you're prepared to lose.

10 Choose to be automatic It's critical that you set up a schedule. The frequency doesn't matter so much, that will simply depend on how much data you're prepared to lose. Be realistic, few people need bvackups every 15 minutes, but monthly may be a little too long. For example - if you set to monthly on the 1st of the month and your computer dies on the 28th of the month, you could lose everything you've done for the 4 weeks since the backup. Some things to consider... The first backup will run for a very long time. But after that the backups will only run for a few minutes The schedule can be set to wake the computer then put it back to sleep, or start the computer up then shut it down again. So there is no problem scheduling backups for the middle of the night. It makes no difference if you miss a scheduled run, for example if you don't have the backup drive conected because you are travelling. The program expects that to happen. You can tell it to either ignore when that happens, or remember it and run the backup as soon as the drive is plugged in. Page 10

11 Setup the schedule Have a play in the schedule to set it the way you need it. The example below says take a backup every day at 11pm, starting tonight If the computer is asleep then wake it up to do the backup If I don't have the backup drive plugged in at 11pm then remember the task, and run it as soon as the drive is plugged in again. Click "Done" when you're finished. Page 11

12 Backup task summary This summary will tell you about your backup task, including when it ran and whether it had any problems. So you can always check back on it later. On the top right of the main panel ther is a "History" icon - if you click that it will gvied you a more extensive report. Page 12

13 Advanced settings Whilst it's not needed to get your backups going, there are additional options available if you click on "Use Advanced Settings". You shouldn't need to change these, but we'll look at a few anyway. Going there also gives access to the "Help" icons. Page 13

14 Help pop-ups Click on the small "?" for more info - CCC has a good help system both in the program and via the "Help" menu which includes an online manual ie. choosing it takes you to the website. Page 14

SafetyNet on or off? "Safety Net" is a feature of CCC that keeps old versions of files. Put simply when you take a backup CCC will check each file on your computer.

15 SafetyNet on or off? "Safety Net" is a feature of CCC that keeps old versions of files. Put simply when you take a backup CCC will check each file on your computer. If a file is changed or deleted with "Safety Net On" it will move the old version of the file on your backup disk to a special folder called "_CCC SafetyNet" on the backup disk backup the new version of the file from your computer to the backup disk check the size of "_CCC SafetyNet" against the settings you've given if "_CCC SafetyNet" has too much content it will delete items The "_CCC SafetyNet" folder will only have files deleted when the backup disk is filling up - but that's hardly cause for concern. It could easily have copies of documents that you deleted years ago. For example if you have a 1TB backup disk and you have 400GB of files on your computer, then your backup disk has 600GB more space available that you're not using and it would always be that way. If Safety Net started hoarding the old copies of all your changed documents it would slowly use up that 600GB - BUT how long would it take to fill up 600GB? It may never actually get there! To get to those old versions you simply browse the "_CCC SafetyNet" folder on the backup disk until you find the file you need. If I looked into my "_CCC SafetyNet" folder on my backup drive, it looks like the picture below. It's showing me that on the date/time, I had files changed in my "ACT apple" and "xpad" folders. If I wanted an old file I would simply go there and get it. Page 15

16 SafetyNet pruning You tell CCC how to keep the "_CCC SafetyNet" folder under control. It will continue to add files until it fills the backup drive, so even though that could be a long time away, we need to give it instruction. The options are remove the oldest files when the backup disk has less than an amount of free space remaining remove the oldest files when the reach a certain age remove the oldest files when the "_CCC SafetyNet" folder exceeds the specified size never remove the oldest items. In this event the backup would fail when the disk is full, and you can just figure out what to do at that time. If you're not sure, a good option is to prune when free space is less than 100GB. On a normal backup drive that should give you plenty of space for the Safety Net folder, it will quit possibly be able to keep old versions for years, whilst guaranteeing that there is room on the backup disk for any unexpected but very large additions to your backups. You can always change this option later when you get more of an idea of what you need. Page 16

17 What to do with the backup you've just made This simply tells CCC what to do with the backup disk. If you don't want to see it on your desktop choose "Unmount". Page 17

18 What to do with the computer when done This tells CCC what to do after the backup is done. "Respect Energy Saver settings" means to go back to whatever state the computer should be in based on your Energy Saver System Preferences. If the computer is set to sleep after 15 minutes then that will happen. If the computer is set to never sleep then that will happen. Otherwise you can use this option to force it to go to sleep etc. Page 18

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