- Carbon Copy Cloner is a popular software that lets Mac users easily back up entire disks and partitions on macOS. As macOS Big Sur is about to be released to the public, the developers behind Carbon Copy Cloner have now alerted their users about potential compatibility issues with the latest version of Apple’s operating system.
- Carbon Copy Cloner compatibility with Big Sur. Thread starter Alwyn; Start date Feb 17, 2021; A. Joined May 7, 2010 Messages 800 Reaction score 3 Points 18.
SuperDuper! 3.3.1 is not yet fully Big Sur compatible.
However, a workaround is now available: see the Shirt Pocket blog for information.
Carbon Copy Cloner uses a different approach for backups; it literally clones the contents of your internal disk onto an external hard drive. (Or you may split your external disk into multiple partitions, and clone to one of those, so you can use the other partition for general purpose file storage).
Have no fear. SuperDuper v3.3.1 is here, and it includes full Catalina support!
SuperDuper is the wildly acclaimed program that makes recovery painless, because it makes creating a fully bootable backup painless. Its incredibly clear, friendly interface is understandable, easy to use, and SuperDuper's built-in scheduler makes it trivial to back up automatically. It's the perfect complement to Time Machine, allowing you to store a bootable backup alongside your Time Machine volume—and it runs beautifully on your Mac!
Version 3.3.1 lets you ignore 'missing drive' errors during scheduled copies, and also improves Smart Wake, which ensures your backups happen whether your Mac is awake or asleep...and won't turn on your screen if your Mac is already awake.
This new version also improves Smart Delete, an awesome new capability that minimizes the possibility of disk full errors while maintaining safety with no speed penalty, native Notification Center support, a Finder extension to quickly run copies, and other improvements. SuperDuper can even create and copy from snapshots, which means with an APFS backup drive, you can restore today's Smart Update, yesterday's, etc! It's super cool.
SuperDuper's interface confirms all your actions in simple, clear language to ensure that the end result is exactly what you intended. Take a look, and click for additional screen shots!
· Main Window · Progress · Snapshots · Scheduling · General Options · Advanced Options ·
The SuperDuper! Main Window
We all know that using the Macintosh is usually a trouble-free experience.
Except when it's not. Like when:
- Your hard drive starts making that horrible clicking noise that signals an imminent meltdown
- A momentary lapse of coordination causes your MacBook Pro to take a dirt nap
- The system suddenly fails to boot
- Your most important day-to-day application isn't working with the system update you just applied
- The new driver you just updated is causing your Macintosh to crash
- That lousy software you just tried didn't come with an uninstaller, and scattered files all over your drive
- You need to restore a stable copy of your system, but don't want to lose what you've been working on
- You need to test new versions of the operating system with production data you can't afford to lose
It happens to all of us, eventually. And recovering can be a painful, error-prone, time-wasting experience, if it's even possible at all. Until now.
Carbon copies. And a whole lot more.
SuperDuper is the most advanced, yet easy to use disk copying program available for macOS. It can, of course, make a full backup, or 'clone' — in moments, you can completely duplicate your boot drive to another drive, partition, or image file. In even less time, you can update an existing clone with the latest data: use Smart Update and, minutes later, your backup is completely up to date!
Faster than a speeding bullet – and more accurate!
SuperDuper isn't just the most powerful cloner available: it's incredibly fast, too. Its Smart Update feature evaluates hundreds of thousands of files and directories in just minutes, automatically updating your clone to reflect any changes you've made on the original drive – including custom icons, HFS+ attributes, ownership changes... the works! It can even copy (and Smart Update) Time Machine backup volumes!
Expertise not required.
SuperDuper comes preconfigured, ready to perform all the most common copying and cloning tasks. We've pored over the Apple documentation so you don't have to. Every step of the process carefully follows all Apple recommended policies and procedures.
Whether you're making a full backup to a disk image, using Smart Update to update an existing backup, or making a complex clone to test a software update, the process couldn't be simpler: select the source drive, the destination and the appropriate script. Click Copy Now, and SuperDuper does the rest.
Doveryai no Proveryai.
Most companies would cherry-pick their feedback, and include selected quotes from happy customers. Sure, we could point you to our 4.55 star review from Macworld, ormanyotherraves. We could even point you to our back-to-back 2005 and 2006 Eddy Awards!
But we're not going to do that. Instead, we encourage you to ask some friends, and look for yourself! Here's a simple Google query for 'superduper macintosh review' to get you started.
(It means 'Trust but Verify'.)
Clones for experts.
Regular backups aren't always the best way to recover for the risk takers out there who jump on every software update. Unless you take specific steps, fully restoring a backup restores everything on the drive, overwriting both the system and user files. If that's what you want to do, great. But it usually isn't, because everything you've done since the backup would be lost!
With SuperDuper, though, you can easily 'checkpoint' your system with a Sandbox, preserving your computer's critical applications and files while you run on a working, bootable copy. If anything goes wrong, just reboot to the original. When you do, your current Documents, Music, Pictures — even iSync data — are available! You can get back to work immediately!
Clones for industry!
SuperDuper has enough features to satisfy the advanced user, too. Its simple-but-powerful Copy Script feature allows complete control of exactly which files get copied, ignored, even aliased ('soft linked' for the Unix inclined) from one drive to another!
SuperDuper is perfect for software developers, software 'seed' sites, QA testers, even system administrators:
- Developers and Seed Sites
Need to keep up to date with the most recent weekly build of a new operating system? Use the provided 'Copy with Shared User Files and Applications' script, or create your own. A few clicks later and your clone is ready to upgrade, without unsafe downgrades, or unsupported 'intermediate build' upgrades! - QA Testers
Need to regress against a large number of operating system targets, or other types of fixed configurations? Simply save a series of images, and in minutes you can restore them and be ready to test. - System Administrators
Need complete control over building a standard image for one, one hundred or one thousand systems? SuperDuper's Copy Scripts make it easy!
Get cloned.
Give SuperDuper a workout on your own system. Clone to your heart's content—for free. See what else is possible. When you're convinced that SuperDuper is a terrific solution—and a great value at US$27.95—you can click buy now, have the registration entered with a single click, and start using its advanced features immediately!
Download the free trial now!
The hardest point in being a Mac owner is when you believe new models are on the way as you struggle with a slower older system. With the initial three M1 Apple silicon Mac models nearly five months old, there’s hope that additional updates—potentially even faster than the first M1 Macs—could appear as soon as April, though they might not be out until the fall.
Not all of us will have the budget to upgrade when they do appear, but we might still feel jealous of the speed. If you’ve got a Mac that uses a Fusion drive—or, even slower, a hard disk drive—as its startup volume, there is a way to add zest to it, and the improvement may shock you.
Starting a few macOS releases ago, Apple improved its management and use of RAM, resulting in less swapping of active software to a drive and back, which particularly slows down a Mac with an hard drive or Fusion drive. If you have a Mac that allows for easy RAM upgrades, that’s a place to start to get a speed boost. RAM prices for Macs that are upgradable remain low relative to the value provided—$100 or $200 could provide a good boost.
However, the biggest single update you can do to see dramatic improvements is to switch your startup volume from a hard drive or Fusion drive to a SSD. If you have a Mac that allows the replacement (whether it’s easy or difficult to do) of its internal drive with an SSD, maybe you already made this upgrade.
Since most Macs of the Fusion drive era don’t allow a drive upgrade with ease—or, in the case of an iMac, require huge and careful effort to swap out the drive—consider using an external SSD that connects via USB 3 or Thunderbolt 3. The data rates of either standard are fast enough with an SSD to offer a significant improvement. And the cost of 1TB SSDs has finally fallen enough that it’s absolutely reasonable to consider them rather than swapping out your computer entirely. For $200 to $300, you can purchase a high-performance, well-reviewed SSD that will boost your speed, sometimes by such a high factor it may seem like a new Mac.
Here are the instructions on how to set up an external SSD as the startup drive. This only applies to Intel Macs. All M1-based Macs come with SSD-only storage.
Initialize the SSD
To switch to an SSD, you should start with these steps:
- Connect your new SSD.
- Launch Disk Utility and choose View > Show All Devices.
- Select the drive in the list in the left-hand side, and click Erase. (If you don’t see the list, choose View > Show Sidebar.)
- Choose to format as APFS with the GUID Partition Map. Follow prompts.
APFS is optimized for SSDs, and it’s rare that a drive you purchase will already be set up with that filesystem.
Clone your startup volume with macOS Catalina or earlier
You should now make an exact duplicate of your startup volume and copy it to the SSD. You have a lot of methods, which vary by macOS release:
- With macOS 10.14 Mojave or earlier, you can follow these instructions. (The column was written in 2016, but remains accurate through Mojave.)
- With macOS 10.15 Catalina, these instructions will guide you through the slightly more complicated process.
Apfs System Snapshot Big Sur
Clone your startup volume with Big Sur
Like Catalina, macOS 11 Big Sur invisibly splits the system into a System volume and a Data volume that are contained in an APFS volume group. This happens behind the scenes and you can generally ignore it.
However, due to additional system integrity protections in Big Sur, you can’t make a full clone as easily as even with Catalina. With Big Sur, you first have copy or install the operating system on the external drive before you copy your data.
You can either:
- Restart into macOS Recovery (choose > Restart and hold down Command-R at startup) and then click Reinstall macOS. Select the SSD as the target. After finishing installing Big Sur, open the Startup Disk preference pane and select your internal drive, then click Restart so you can finish the copying.
- Use Carbon Copy Cloner, which can use a built-in Apple system-level tool to copy the system files correctly. Follow instructions in that app for that special operation. You should test that the installation was successful by restarting with the external SSD, which will have no user data on it. Then restart again with your internal system volume. (You may need to restart and hold down the Option key to select the startup drive.)
Following a successful Big Sur installation, you can use an up-to-date Time Machine backup, Carbon Copy Cloner, or Disk Utility to copy your data. If you use Disk Utility follow the instructions in this article, but only restore the Data volume of your internal drive to the Data volume of the external drive.
Restart with your SSD and clean up the startup volume
With any method you choose above, when it’s all complete, you open the Startup Disk preference pane, select the SSD as the startup volume, and then can restart with it as your main system.
The system on your internal drive will remain in place, however, and that can cause problems if one of your apps or you accidentally select a file from the internal drive instead of the fresher one on your external SSD. To avoid this, you can eject the internal drive after starting up, or if you’re sure you’ve made a complete backup of it (or more than one), delete your data from it, leaving just the system to boot into in case of an emergency.
Carbon Copy Cloner Big Sur M1
This Mac 911 article is in response to a question submitted by Macworld reader David.
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Carbon Copy Cloner Clone Big Sur
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