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Message: <blockquote data-quote="MacInWin" data-source="post: 1890281" data-attributes="member: 396914">No need to be so pessimistic, Patrick. "It just works" still applies. It just works differently. What is changing is that in the "olden" days, one could do a simple clone backup and if the internal drive died, run from the clone (albeit with some performance hits) while waiting for the internal drive replacement to come in and be installed. Then clone back and voila! all is well!Now, because of the System-on-a-chip approach and the added security to Big Sur and Monterey, Apple has made the logical assumption that if the storage fails, the entire logic board is dead. Basically, if storage has a hardware failure the entire SoC has failed. With that assumption (and I think it's valid, by the way), they added security by using the storage area for various boot processes that ensure that the SoC is not compromised by any malware hackers may have tried to create. Again, not a bad decision, given the premise that failed storage means failed system. That logical decision and design leads to the dilemma for clone developers: They cannot get to those other Containers (by design and for security) so they cannot make a bootable clone that can boot even if the entire storage of the SoC has failed. But even if they could get to it, it would do no good to have it on the backup drive because the boot process looks for it ONLY in the on-board storage, before it looks to any external drive.Does that mean clones are no longer of any value? No. Clones will still be a valid backup process, and they may well be valid as boot drives as long as the failure of the internal storage is software and not hardware. So a corrupted internal "drive" can still be reformatted and reinstalled from a clone. The boot process will look to the hidden Containers in Storage, initialize the boot, then look to the external drive for the rest of the boot and operations. Disk Utility will be able to reinitialize the visible portion of the internal storage "drive" and then the system can be reinstalled, even cloned back. So, not really a huge change. But for me what that means is that I'll probably stop backing up the entire storage and just concentrate on the Data volume. If the internal storage gets corrupted, I'll do an Internet recovery and reinstallation, then restore from the clone. That will be, I think, faster given that I have good internet speeds. For those not so lucky to have good internet, there may be a way to make a bootable installer USB thumb drive that can be used to reinstall to the internal. I've not seen a process for that, yet, but if I do, I'll post it here.But the days of having a fully bootable external drive just in case the internal storage dies are no longer.</blockquote>

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