An important note about upgrading to Mojave!

[ferrarr]

No, not necessary Bob. The mobile version of our forum software is different from the normal browser version. Nick and one other person have been working with our forum software and will get things sorted out in the future. For now, let's be thankful that we have your Avatar and Jake's working as they should. Later on we will worry about applying fixes to the mobile version.

Ok, thanks chscag.

 

[Rod]

Malwarebytes now available for Mojave.

 

[Rod]

I have tried booting my MBP from my External HD with Mojave backup installed despite the fact that my EHD is HFS+ and it works fine. Reverse cloning should also be possible I believe because CCC will create an APFS snapshot on the target volume if chosen. See this article from Bombich it explains it better than I can; https://www.macobserver.com/news/bombich-software-carbon-copy-cloner-apfs-snapshots/

 

[MacInWin]

Rod, just to be certain, you have upgraded to Mojave (not beta) and cloned to a CCC drive formatted HFS+ and booted Mojave (not beta) from that drive? Is that right? Just want to be absolutely certain about that before moving on.

 

[Rod]

Further to the above, dont forget all this has already happened with High Sierra so Mojave is no different. See this article from Bombich June 2017;
Will CCC work with Apple's new filesystem, APFS?

"The current version of CCC 4 already works with APFS insofar as CCC can copy files to and from that filesystem. The current version can also make bootable backups from an APFS startup disk to an HFS+ formatted destination volume – we've already tested that, and in the little bit of testing that we've done so far, that works great. The current feature set of CCC 4 will be qualified against High Sierra – creating bootable HFS+-based backups and working with CoreStorage encrypted backups will be qualified and functional (barring any OS bugs) and we aim to complete that by the time Apple ships High Sierra in the Fall.

Creating a bootable APFS volume, however, is brand-new territory. The semantics of starting a Mac from an APFS volume are completely different from those of an HFS+ volume. We have established a procedure to create an APFS startup volume, though, and we've even created a proof-of-concept bootable APFS clone. What lies ahead is a massive amount of engineering work to build support for these new procedures into CCC. APFS encryption is also handled quite differently from CoreStorage encryption, so we have a lot of work to do in regard to building in support for automatically unlocking and mounting APFS encrypted backup volumes. We're aiming to offer new functionality for creating APFS bootable (and optionally encrypted) backups by the time Apple ships macOS High Sierra in the Fall."

 

[MacInWin]

Rod, I know all that, and have read all that, but the question is that Charlie said

Mojave will not boot from HFS+

and nothing in what you quoted says anything to contradict that. All the stuff about HS was fine, but Apple has made changes in Mojave and HFS+ and from Charlie's statement, one of them is that Mojave won't boot from an HFS+ drive. One cannot accept Charlie's statement and say "Mojave is no different." It either is, or isn't different, and will or won't work. So, again, have you actually booted a non-beta version of Mojave from an external, HFS+ formatted drive? Does Bombich say it can be done, definitively? I didn't find that on their website anywhere I could see.

 

[chscag]

@Jake:

I'm about to test that now. I've made a clone of my Mojave installation with CCC on an external drive formatted to HFS+ to see if it will work. Will get back to you when I find out.

 

[chscag]

@Jake:

I just attempted to boot my HFS+ external volume created with CCC. Although it booted (took forever) there were errors and things were not working right. No sound and some other errors.

My advice: Convert your CCC external hard drives to APFS before using them to clone Mojave. Note... I did not have any problem with High Sierra, but Mojave is a horse of a different color!

I'm going to clone Mojave to my APFS CCC volume now to see how it goes. Will let you know.

 

[MacInWin]

Thanks, Charlie. That was what I was concerned about. Good backup, but not a bootable clone. I'll do the APFS-thing on the external and upgrade.

 

[chscag]

@Jake:

Just completed booting with the APFS clone made with CCC. Booted normally and everything working the way it's supposed to. My advice: If you are going to continue using CCC with Mojave, reformat your external drives to APFS.

 

[MacInWin]

In progress as we speak, Charlie. I want my last HS backup on APFS, will then install Mojave with the backup drive disconnected for a day or two. What can you say about Time Machine? Should I start a new TM "thread" or will Mojave just add to the TM backups I already have?

 

[chscag]

What can you say about Time Machine? Should I start a new TM "thread" or will Mojave just add to the TM backups I already have?

I haven't started to address Time Machine. My Time Machine external drive is formatted to HFS+. From what I've read about Time Machine and Mojave, it appears that for now any Time Machine external drive used should remain as HFS+. If I hear anything more about that, I'll post on to this thread.

 

[Rod]

MacInWin, no I am still downloading the GS version of Mojave so I have only tested the beta. Looks like Charlie has it covered though.
Charlie are you using a SSD type external HD or a spinner? I seem to recall that Bombich advised not to convert spinners to APFS.

 

[chscag]

All my external hard drives are spinners for the time being. I do have a Samsung T5 on order which should be arriving soon.

Note that Mojave is different. Mike Bombich was referring to High Sierra at the time he advised keeping external drives formatted to HFS+. Well, that clearly does not work any longer with Mojave. I've tested it both ways and unless you wish to take chances with your backup data, I strongly advise reformatting your CCC backup drive to APFS. It's easy enough to do.

 

[Rod]

Thanks Charlie, I'll reformat prior to my next CCC backup.

 

[pine man]

I wrote about the CCC issue to Bombich and asked:-

Will previous backups still be accessible/usable, or should I start from scratch again, and is it necessary to change the format of the backup drive?

Mike replied:-

Hi Peter,

Your backups will be unaffected by the change. You don't have to do anything to your backup disk:

I'll have to do some tests to set my mind at rest.

 

[MacInWin]

Well, notwithstanding what Bombich may have said, I formatted my CCC target drive to APFS (it's an SSD in an enclosure, so it makes sense to do that anyway), then created a new CCC clone of my HS system before installing Mojave. Now on Mojave, will wait a day or so to see if I'm committed to it, then will redo a clean CCC clone to that APFS drive. From Charlie's experiment, I just don't think Mojave works well trying to boot from HFS+. Might work, but it's too important for me to risk and it's just a small hassle to reformat the backup drive.

 

[pine man]

My backup drive is a spinner so APFS wasn't an option when it came to formatting it. I have formatted it MacOs Extended (Journalled) GUID Partiton Map and carried out a full back up of my APFS Mojave Drive, which is a Fusion Drive. Looking at that drive in Disk Utilty it appears different from before. It shows as Fusion Drive containing a Container 2 Disk Drive which contains the Macintosh HD. All are APFS although, obviously part of it is a spinner.

The backup didn't take too long to boot and everything seems ok as far as I can see including sound etc.

Edit
I just rebooted and went to erase the test backup disk I had used and noticed that it now gives additional formatting choices. APFS, APFS (Encrypted), APFS (Case sensitive) and APFS (Case sensitive, encrypted).

Now where to go?

Another Edit
Formatted it APFS and it looks as though it creates a VM and puts the drive inside that and both are APFS.

 

[IWT]

Complicated, isn’t it? Or is it just me? Probably me.

Ian

 

[chscag]

Something important to note about CCC and Mojave:

You must give CCC permission in order for it to work correctly with Mojave. CCC will inform you that it needs that permission before it can properly copy all files.

The fact that I didn't (at first) give CCC permission - probably overlooked it - may have been the reason that it did not properly create a backup and the subsequent boot cycle was flawed. That's just my take on it but I would be interested in what others are experiencing?

According to member "pine man", the backup of his Fusion drive was okay and booted properly.

One thing that I have observed: My backups are much faster since I reformatted my external spinner drives to APFS. A total backup which took 30 minutes to complete, now finishes in around 23 minutes. That's a saving of 7 minutes.

I'm also going to change my backup drive to a new Samsung T5 SSD which has a Thunderbolt 3/USB-c port. Should make the backup much faster. I'll report results later on.