Before installing macOS updates or upgrades, a mirror (or clone) of your Mac’s content is a wise thing to create, even if Time Machine backups are being made. Carbon Copy Cloner 6 (£29.90, bombich.com) is a hard drive cloning utility, offering regular backups or a clone of the system as a whole. Both Time Machine and Carbon Copy Cloner 6 may be used together, since the latter has older versions for Mojave and other OS’s.

Big Sur and Catalina alter the method that cloning a source object and then repairing the clone is done. It’s preferable to install macOS and then migrate from a copy than it is to just clone the data to your internal storage. This method is the only way to migrate from a hard drive to an M1 Mac. Using CCC, you won’t need to clone the System disk, since that would save space, but it is still possible to do so if you want to.

CCC offers almost a dozen choices. We’ve also prepared a few handy tips, including omitting files which may be transferred in bulk, and taking snapshots to make data recovery faster. Make sure your clone works by restoring test items even if you choose different values.

The proper method to clone your Mac

Set the source volume at a decent level

For example, you may name the backup you created with Carbon Copy Cloner, so it appears on the sidebar when you need it later. To clone your starting drive, click on the Source icon and then choose Macintosh HD as your source.

Choose a location

Consider how much space was used on your source, and be sure that the destination volume has the necessary space available for it. After that, choose the disk with enough free space to hold the clone using the Destination icon.

whether to cycle

Click Automation to choose an automatic cloning schedule. Daily backups are the standard, however with a seldom connected Mac, the disk may be unmounted without creating a clone.

scheduling information such as schedule length

When you have a Mac, it’s smart to turn it off when you aren’t using it and to keep twit from running overnight. If it is going to be down for the count, it is either best to do the backup job which would wake the system, or delay it until a better time. You have the option of not working on weekends.

There are five prohibited things.

When creating a clone, you may choose what you don’t want included in the task plan. In the main window, find the task plan button at the bottom and click it. It may be a good idea to maintain distinct copies of files like virtual machines, which change often while they are being used.

Choose Advanced settings

For the more skilled, CCC provides many solutions, including executing scripts before and after copying. When you are using your Mac, you may alter the priority of your copying jobs here if you want them to back up while they are occurring.

7 Go through a dry run before proceeding.

Do a comparison first, since a clone may fail to create the proper copies. When you need to estimate the final size of your PDF file before sending it to a printer, you may click on the Preview button and CCC will estimate the file size without sending the file. Find and correct the mistakes right away.

To start the attack, define 8 different source snapshots.

Think about having frequent backups. In the sidebar, choose Macintosh HD – Data or simply Data. That’s the name of the starting data volume. CCC will do a snapshot with each copy of that volume. Please enable CCC.

snapshot history

Old snapshots tend to eat up disk space, which is why most people are glad to hear that CCC’s default retention policy is sensible and perfect. If you want to customize the policy, be sure to check the amount of space that’s utilized.

Clone that hard drive

After you’ve finished the setup, just double-click the project’s task in the sidebar and choose the Run Now option to generate your first clone. The next slides show the clone’s progress in graphical form with a realistic estimate of the time needed to complete.

Task activities in check -> Conduct an audit.

Select the completed job in the Work History and look at the Task Trends button to get a summary of what was done in the completed task. Click the Start button in the main window if the task has to happen again.

A 12 system clone

If you want CCC to clone your whole system drive in addition to your System volume, use the Legacy Bootable Backup Assistant to create a complete bootable backup before proceeding to step 7.

It will need

a quarter hour

you will learn

to back up your files

You will have to

external storage with enough free space for Carbon Copy Cloner 6 and macOS 10.15 or later