To Clone or Not to Clone

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Hi,

I am trying to get my head around the benefit of purchasing a dedicated hard drive for Clone purposes.

I now have 2 1.5T Seagate/Thunderbolt adapted drives.

Drive #1 is partitioned 1T/500GB; the 1T is being used for Time Machine to backup my 480 SSD that replaced my optical drive.

I can partition Drive #2 250GB/1.25T and every so often use Carbon Copy to make a copy of the Mac HD. There is no data stored on the 230GB MacHD; only OSX and apps etc.

I have a copy of 10.8 on a thumb drive; I have copies of all of the installed software on an external drive. What is the benefit of cloning my Mac HD?

Q: If the computer crashes and I reformat and install the 10.8 from the thumb drive, am I able to reinstall all of the apps from the Clone drive without going through an install process for each application? Even applications that required passwords or key numbers for their original installation?

Thanks from a new and so far happy Mac user.
 
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Time Machine and a cloned drive serve different purposes in different scenarios. T.M. is good for going back and getting a file that you deleted or made a bunch of changes to and changed your mind. It's also good for installing a fresh OS on a new Mac or when replacing your Mac's internal drive.
The cloned drive allows you to boot from that external drive in the instance your Mac's internal breaks down and is useless. You can continue to work off that external until you're able to replace the internal. Can't do that with T.M. When you install the new internal, you can set everything up again from your T.M. backup or you can finish the basic OS install and then clone everything back over from your cloned backup.

Going even further, all HDDs eventually fail and it would be a good idea to make periodical DVD backups of important files, etc. But that's all covered in the sticky thread on backups. http://www.mac-forums.com/forums/switcher-hangout/245794-official-backup-faq-start-backing-up-now.html
 

bobtomay

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My understanding with Time Machine, is that some software that writes to system folders will still need to be installed separately - e.g. they won't work upon restoring them from Time Machine.

A cloned drive allows you to clone your new drive exactly the same and does not require the time spent installing the OS separately, nor the need for reinstalling any software.
 
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Hi to both of you,

I am only using TM on data (docs and images). TM is limited to 1T of ExtDrv #1.

Clone: ExtDrv #2 can/will be partitioned 250GB/1.25T. My Mac HD is 240GB and it is limited to everything other than data/images. Actually contains about 150GB of OS X, Apps, etc.

Like TM, Can a Clone be limited to a partition on an external drive or do you have to have a fully dedicated drive?

If limited to a partition on a drive, is the whole drive bootable or only the Clone partition?

With a Clone image, are you able to cherry pick or much you use the whole image?

Thanks,
 

bobtomay

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A clone by it's definition is an exact duplicate of the original.
Want to cherry pick what to back up, then it's not a clone.

A drive &/or partition can be cloned to a drive &/or partition as long as there is enough space.

If limited to a partition on a drive, is the whole drive bootable or only the Clone partition?

Does not compute - when you create multiple partitions on any drive and install a bootable OS into a single or multiple partitions, you have a bootable drive.
 
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Luvntravln
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.Does not compute - when you create multiple partitions on any drive and install a bootable OS into a single or multiple partitions, you have a bootable drive.

What App creates the bootable drive; the clone program?

For example, when I clone mynMac HD to the 250GB partition created by disc utility, does the clone process include converting the entire drive to a bootable drive?

Where does the bootable "stuff"reside? In the partition I created for the Clone image, or in the larger storage partition?

The drive I am cloning is a maximum of 240 GB; barely half full. How much larger than 240 should I make the clone partition?

Thanks
 

bobtomay

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To create a bootable clone, you'll want to use CarbonCopyCloner or SuperDuper!.
With 10.7 & 10.8, use CCC.

I'd suggest making the partition the same size as the drive/partition you want to clone.
 
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A clone by it's definition is an exact duplicate of the original.
Want to cherry pick what to back up, then it's not a clone.

A drive &/or partition can be cloned to a drive &/or partition as long as there is enough space.



Does not compute - when you create multiple partitions on any drive and install a bootable OS into a single or multiple partitions, you have a bootable drive.

I am going to use CCC.
 
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FWIW: I've used SD! for 10.7 and 10.8. Worked fine so far I can tell.
 

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FWIW: I've used SD! for 10.7 and 10.8. Worked fine so far I can tell.

The clone of 10.7 or 10.8 from SD will work. My understanding is that SD will clone everything but the Recovery partition. Did it copy that for you?
 

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