Quick question about Carbon Copy

Hello everyone,

I tried to search for this but didn't see an exact same scenario so wanted your expertise.

I just bought CC and was about ready to run it, but it got me thinking. I have an 2 TB external drive that I keep a lot of extra data on. I also have a 1TB drive that I use exclusively for Time Machine.

Can I CC to my 2 TB drive with the other data on it without messing up the other data? I have several hundred GB's of data on there so obviously I don't want it to mess that up.

Does it create a separate partition?
How will it show up on the external HD?

Just some newbie questions on this software.

Thanks again!

Steve

My suggestion would be to switch your TM backups to the 2TB HD and save the 1TB for CCC (reformat and create a bootable clone).

I definitely appreciate the suggestion. The thing is, last November I actually swapped them to their current configuration and I really like having it that way.

Do you (or anyone else for that matter) happen to know the answer to my question?

This will probably only be temporary anyway as I will likely try and score a 3 TB drive when I have the money so I can not only clone my Mac HD, but also my external data drive.

Having clones of both would give me a bit more of a safety net.

Thanks again.

Can I CC to my 2 TB drive with the other data on it without messing up the other data? I have several hundred GB's of data on there so obviously I don't want it to mess that up.

Does it create a separate partition?
How will it show up on the external HD?

Click to expand...

Carbon Copy Cloner will overwrite any data that is currently on the external hard drive. Without partitioning that drive first, you will have no way to control what CCC does once it starts the cloning process.

Since you're a former Windows user, CCC acts the same way as Norton Ghost or Acronis True Image when it clones. It takes over the entire drive.

Use the suggestion by Razormac.

The problem with that suggestion though is that it doesn't take into consideration of the nearly 200GB of data that I have already residing on the 2TB drive that isn't on my iMac.

So I have my regular data that I use often on my iMac HD. I have a 1TB drive that I use as a TimeMachine backup. And I have a 2TB drive that I currently have over 200GB of data that isn't on my iMac. I keep that stuff separate because it is just stuff that eats up space on my iMac.

I was just wanting to CC my Mac HD onto my 2TB drive. But it is appearing that I can't do that without losing my 200+GB of data that I already have on it.

I understand. I have four external hard drives on my desk in addition to the iMac. I keep CCC, Time Machine, and other data separate from each other. Not the most economical way to do things but I find (at least for me) it's convenient.

I hear you. So let me ask a question and also throw out a scenario at the same time.

I was hoping to not only clone my iMac HD, but also clone my 2TB data drive with my extra stuff on it. It sounds like the best thing to do is to get another drive and partition it to 2 partitions. Is that right?

So can I make one partition a boot drive (obviously the iMac clone) and make the other partition simply a data clone?

Am I on the right track here? Any other suggestions?

Thanks again.

I was hoping to not only clone my iMac HD, but also clone my 2TB data drive with my extra stuff on it. It sounds like the best thing to do is to get another drive and partition it to 2 partitions. Is that right?

Click to expand...

Yes, that would work.

So can I make one partition a boot drive (obviously the iMac clone) and make the other partition simply a data clone? Am I on the right track here? Any other suggestions?

Click to expand...

Yes, again. If I were doing it, that's the method I would also employ. As long as you create the first partition as HFS+ using the GUID partition scheme, CCC will render it bootable. Keep in mind that if you're using Lion or ML, CCC will also clone the Recovery partition at the same time. But that will not interfere with your partitioning scheme.

This is what I do and it works well.