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What if one thing goes fallacious and also you want instant entry on-site to a full backup of your Mac’s startup quantity or an exterior drive, and it’s essential return to work as quickly as doable? The introduction of Apple silicon made it troublesome to create a drive you possibly can swap in and begin up from, however that shouldn’t cease you from making a backup that can get you again in enterprise. (There are workarounds, however it requires ongoing effort.)
The most suitable choice to have a virtually hot-swappable copy of your most vital domestically saved information is a clone. A clone is an actual copy of the present state of a quantity–a snapshot, actually. Time Machine affords a type of this functionality, however it additionally archives older recordsdata. You’ll be able to configure cloning software program simply to maintain an up-to-date copy of the drive you need to mirror and nothing extra.
I’ve relied on Carbon Copy Cloner or CCC ($49.99) for years. It helps cloning and a lot of associated options, like archiving. An alternate is SuperDuper! ($27.95), which is extra tightly centered on quantity cloning. With apps, you decide a supply (sometimes a quantity) and a vacation spot, set a schedule, and configure fiddly choices, like verifying recordsdata after copying in CCC.
Cloning helps you to use a drive that’s no larger than the drive you’re copying from for cloning, not like Time Machine and archiving modes in different backup software program, which want area to retailer a number of variations of recordsdata over time. (Time Machine all the time archives older recordsdata till a backup quantity begins to fill, after which it purges the oldest variations of archived recordsdata first.)
I’ve discovered that cloning software program has a bonus in reliability over Time Machine, which shops information in date-stamped snapshots. In case your startup quantity dies and your Mac remains to be working, you need to use an exterior drive, set up macOS on it, and use Migration Assistant throughout setup to import recordsdata. Nevertheless, I’ve had issues on a number of events the place Migration Assistant received’t acknowledge what appears to be an up-to-date Time Machine copy of my startup quantity. I’ve turned to a cloned backup of that quantity, which works compatibly with Migration Assistant and doesn’t appear to fail in the identical circumstances. I’ve been grateful that I had this additional copy.
A Macworld reader requested particularly about establishing a rapidly accessible exterior drive in case the drive they saved their Images library on failed. May they swap instantly to a clone that’s been saved updated on the opposite drive? Sure, and it’s a terrific objective for a clone.
In that situation, you possibly can give up Images (if it hadn’t already instructed you of an issue and give up), eject the failing drive, launch Images whereas holding down Possibility, and choose the Images Library file on the cloned drive. Relying on how continuously you’ve the clone operation set, you would possibly lose little or no work. With iCloud Images enabled, you’ll additionally must set the cloned library as your System Library in > Images > Settings > Common by clicking Use as System Photograph Library.
You may also drill down with clones, copying simply a part of a quantity as a substitute of the entire thing. I had a Images library meltdown in 2021 that took me hours to get better from after which days to get again to regular. One thing in my Images Library bundle corrupted so badly that even restoring from a Time Machine backup failed. Ultimately, I needed to rebuild from scratch and let Images sync with iCloud to retrieve all my pictures and movies. Vowing to not let that occur once more, I setup a nightly clone of my domestically saved Images Library bundle to a high-capacity exterior arduous drive. Whereas the arduous drive is sluggish, the clone replace occurs in a single day, so it doesn’t overlap with my daytime work.
Carbon Copy Cloner provides me an additional set of suspenders on my Images Library backup by making an actual copy, updating simply any modified recordsdata for effectivity, each evening.
Carbon Copy Cloner provides me an additional set of suspenders on my Images Library backup by making an actual copy, updating simply any modified recordsdata for effectivity, each evening.
Foundry
Carbon Copy Cloner provides me an additional set of suspenders on my Images Library backup by making an actual copy, updating simply any modified recordsdata for effectivity, each evening.
Foundry
Foundry
As a result of a simple clone doesn’t allow you to go backward, I strongly advise you to have not less than a pair different types of backups. Time Machine is the best for a Mac proprietor. Add to that Backblaze or one other encrypted, on-line backup service. Or, if you happen to’re maintaining all of your paperwork and pictures in a syncing service–iCloud Images/iCloud Drive, Dropbox, Google Drive/Google Images, and so on.–you’ll be able to lean on that as your second backup.
This Mac 911 article is in response to a query submitted by Macworld reader Michael.
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