Carbon Copy Cloner - How Long Does It Take?

[RavingMac]

I have used Time Machine for backup since I first got my Macs. Finally decided to give Carbon Copy Cloner a try because of the benefit of having a bootable copy of my HD just in case.

My Mac Mini has a 320GB HD with ~50GB free space, started the cloning process 3 days ago (now in the 68th hour) and the cloning isn't finished yet. I expected it to take a while, but this seems excessive.

The target drive is a 320GB Seagate External USB 2.0 portable drive.

I'm not seeing any error messages or indications of problems. So, my question to those of you who have used CCC, is 72 hrs normal for cloning 270GB of System and Data files?

 

[BrianLachoreVPI]

Are you doing this over Firewire?

Ugh - scratch the above - I just saw USB 2.0. I'm still eating breakfast...:Blushing:

 

[BrianLachoreVPI]

I've never used CCC, I use SuperDuper- but that's definitely too long. I can see it taking the better part of a 24hr period but that's about it.

 

[RavingMac]

I thought about doing Firewire, but my FW drives are all in use and I had a USB drive available.
If the drive works in the end I guess it doesn't matter. But the time required seemed a little extreme.

 

[bobtomay]

That seems pretty outrageous to me - even over USB.

I can clone 150GB with SD! in about an hour over FW.
A clone (about 50GB) from my MBA over USB - I think it took just over an hour - no large files in that.

You've had it going so long now, think I'd let it finish. If you've got a bunch of GB+ sized files, USB 2 tends to choke on those when I've tried it unless I moved them one at a time. Now I'm wondering how it would handle moving a single 30GB file. May have to try it and see.

 

[RavingMac]

I am thinking it will be finished by the time I get home from work, so I will test it and report back.

 

[vansmith]

I can clone my 320GB HD (with about 95-100GB of free space) in about 3hrs over USB 2.0 with SuperDuper. Given that, I'd say it's taking much too long.

Have you thought of giving SD a try?

 

[bobtomay]

Pretty sure chscag uses CCC - need him (or others) to chime in on it.

 

[RavingMac]

I can clone my 320GB HD (with about 95-100GB of free space) in about 3hrs over USB 2.0 with SuperDuper. Given that, I'd say it's taking much too long.

Have you thought of giving SD a try?

I may, depending on how this turns out.

Something else that may factor in that I have been wondering about is I have the drive plugged into a USB hub rather than directly into the Mac Mini (basically because its easier to reach than the back on the mini).

Could this be a reason for the S . . L . . O . . W . . . data transfer? Hadn't really ever noticed it having a noticeable impact before, but this is the first 270GB transfer I've done with it too.

 

[vansmith]

Something else that may factor in that I have been wondering about is I have the drive plugged into a USB hub rather than directly into the Mac Mini (basically because its easier to reach than the back on the mini).

Could this be a reason for the S . . L . . O . . W . . . data transfer? Hadn't really ever noticed it having a noticeable impact before, but this is the first 270GB transfer I've done with it too.

Yep. You need to plug that into the Mac itself. That hub could very well be a USB 1.1 hub (I find many are) which would really throttle the speed.

 

[RavingMac]

Yep. You need to plug that into the Mac itself. That hub could very well be a USB 1.1 hub (I find many are) which would really throttle the speed.

I didn't think of that, and given its age . . . I am somewhat frugal (AKA Cheap) it probably is a 1.1 hub.

Oh well, now that I am more than 70 hrs into the process and past 90% done I will probably let it finish.

What about buying a newer hub? Will I lose speed . . . still have the accessibility issue for the back of mini USB ports?

I know they are prettier back there, but a lot more reasonable in front. ;P

 

[JUKE179r]

Is your 320GB Seagate External USB 2.0 portable drive powered by the USB2 port or an external power source? If you can, try using an external power sourced external HD. 3 days seems quite long.

I use CCC all the time to back up my '07 MBP's 320GB (189GB full) internal HD to a 64GB thumb drive and it takes almost an hour. This being that I don't back up movies, music or pictures because I backed them up to a 2TB drive already. I just backup the system files and some documents which equals 47GB on the thumb drive so I can boot from it in case of an emergency.

 

[chscag]

@Razormac:

That's seems too long. I routinely backup anywhere from 150 GB to 250 GB (depending on which machine I'm using) in around 2 Hrs 30 Min. If the drive you're cloning from is fairly full (less than 20% free space) CCC will take longer.

One thing I do notice about CCC, when it starts to backup my Virtual Machine(s) from Fusion, it slows down considerably.

 

[RavingMac]

I think it must have been the USB hub (I have no idea how long I have had it, but well before my Macs).
Just tried booting off the cloned drive and all appears to be well.