Carbon Copy Cloner 5.1.18
Bombich Software has released Carbon Copy Cloner 5.1.18 (CCC), an important update that addresses an APFS filesystem bug introduced by Apple in macOS 10.15.5 Catalina that prevented CCC from creating new bootable backups. Mike Bombich detailed the issue in a blog post, noting that existing backups were unaffected and that the bug is limited to only the initial creation of a bootable backup to an empty disk. Version 5.1.18 can now successfully create an initial backup of a Catalina system volume. The updated drive-cloning and backup utility also adds a green checkmark emoji to the subject of “task completed successfully” emails, improves upon previous attempts to suppress VirusBarrier attached-but-not-mounted disk images, and addresses an issue in which some sparse files were getting copied during every backup. ($39.99 new, free update, 14.6 MB, release notes, macOS 10.10+)
Note that 5.1.18 also excluded 1Password app from CCC back ups by default for the first time. After some feedback to CCC this decision has been reversed in 5.1.19 beta 1. From Release notes for CCC 5.1.19 beta 1:
“CCC no longer excludes 1Password by default. We added the exclusion in light of a recommendation by the folks at Agile software, however we got some feedback that people would prefer to exclude this manually, if at all.”
If you are using 5.1.18 and do not want CCC to exclude the 1P app, you can remove the exclusion (ie include it) by holding down the option key and clicking “Help”. Then choose “Show experimental options”. Click on the Global Filters tab, then scroll to the bottom, select the 1Password item and press the delete key or little minus sign.
Why did Agile recommend that 1Password be excluded from backups?
This makes absolutely no sense. Why would one want to exclude a backup of your encrypted password data?
(Not sure what “excluded 1Password all” means in OP. I assume typo, but of what?)
For the reason in this link
https://support.1password.com/extra-copies-found/
This has been around for years and never caused me a problem. But I guess it multiple copies exist which are not caused by attached clones, then there could be a problem.
OP was meant to say excludes 1Password app
Only the app not vaults or data.
Thanks for the explanation. I have never had the problem either (using SuperDuper – not that that makes any difference) and was not aware of it.
So apparently the problem is that opening the app via any sort of search might open an older version on a backup. That, of course, is true for any app. I see three ways to keep this from happening:
Never backup apps. Instead rely on being able to reload them from wherever they were initially loaded. This, of course, ca cause issues if the release you need is no longer available from that source.
Adjust the search app to exclude looking at the backup. The problem here is that you need to confirm when the search app changes or you change apps, you again add the backup to the exclusion list.
Only mount the backup when actively backing up or restoring objects. If the app is not accessible, it can’t be found. This is what I do. Fortunately, it is easy in Carbon Copy Cloner to script mounting a backup drive when starting a backup task and dismounting it when done.
I have only ever seen the multiple copies window when updating 1Password. The extra copies have always been on backup or dual boot volumes. My suggestion to Agilebits was that the 1P updater could simply require the user to unmount these volumes containing extra copies before proceeding.
If the extra copies are not on backups or dual boots, then there probably is a problem, as there shouldn’t be two copies of 1P in the same volume, so it would be reasonable for the 1P updater to show an error message.
My guess is that most occurrences of the extra copies window are caused by backup or dual boot volumes.
I’m not familiar with CCC. Is it easy to script cyclic backup drives? For example, if I had three volumes (on a single AFPS formatted external drive), could CCC automatically cycle through them? That would be impressive. If that is not easy, is it easy to tell CCC which volume to use during a backup? Thanks.
CCC runs via defined tasks and the drive name is part of the task information. So, you could definitely set up a task for each drive (set up one of them, duplicate it, and change the drive name in the duplicate). I don’t see a way in the app to set up a meta script with the drive name as a variable, but there is the ability to run custom shell scripts prior to the backup.
Note that CCC has a 30-day free trial and extensive in-app documentation. I would recommend downloading the app using the internal documentation to see if that operation is covered.
You could just make 3 different backup jobs and schedule them so they run in whatever sequence and periodicity you want…that’s the simplest way to do it. Sometimes trying to script everything is over rated
One minor unrelated issue. On the CCC website, the drive recommendations are somewhat old &/or obscure models – especially outside the US.
It’d be good for some newer ones to appear, especially SSDs, and perhaps RAIDs. For example, I know many use Samsung’s 4TB QVO SSDs as they’re largest size commonly available at most affordable price per TB. Yet all Samsung stand-alone SSDs are not on that list at all, rather strangely given their huge popularity and availability globally.
Thank you, Alan and Neil. Three jobs does seem simplest.
I am also wondering why the recommended drives are so limited. I am looking at using a Samsung QVO to backup my Samsung EVO drive. I find the Samsungs are really reliable for my Mac computers. I’m on version 6 of CCC but there isn’t really updated drive recommendations.
As the CCC web site says:
The list of recommended drives is far from an exhaustive list, nor is it meant to be one. It is simply a quick list of drives that they have tested and found satisfactory results.
Note that they only list three SSDs, and all are USB devices. They don’t list any bare SATA or NVMe SSDs (including the Samsung QVO series). You should not assume that there is anything wrong with these devices, only that the CCC people have not tested them.
There are quite a lot of high quality hard drives and SSDs you should have no problem using.
And I personally question one of their choices - the WD Black HDD. When I was investigating drives for my backup solution, I deliberately omitted all drives not designed for 24x7 operation - which is especially important for Time Machine or any other kind of scheduled backup system. Although the WD Black appears to be a very high performance HDD, its data sheet does not mention supported up-time, nor does it mention MTBF. In contrast with the WD Red Pro (24x7 operation, 1M hour MTBF) and the WD Gold (24x7 operation, >2M hour MTBF), which do.
To be sure, their generalized recommendations are good (avoid low-performance HDDs, non-SSD flash devices and specific models known to be problematic), but that should be information to form the basis of a search, not the conclusion of said search.
I ended up using the former Time Machine spinner for CCC. Seems to work fine so far.
No reason why it shouldn’t. An HDD will be slower than an SSD, but if it works, then there’s no reason why you can’t use it to make a backup. The CCC knowledge base only recommends against slower HDDs because it will make your backups take longer - which may be fine for you if your backups complete in what you consider an acceptable amount of time.
The only potential issue may be if you try to boot from your external drive - some USB interface boards are not bootable on Macs. But if yours is (or if you don’t plan on ever booting the drive), then that won’t matter.