Carbon Copy Cloner working but taking VERY long time

[tyhenry]

Hi -

First time trying out CCC - I'm wondering if this behavior is normal... it seems to be chugging along without errors, but it's taken 66 hours so far to clone ~400gb of data (about 3/4 done).

I'm cloning the files from:
- an internal hybrid drive in a late 2013 10.11 iMac (mounted on an identical iMac running CCC through Thunderbolt target disk mode)
to:
- USB3 bus-powered 5400 rpm 2.5" external drive (freshly formatted HFS+)

Before running CCC I ran some tests on the internal drive of the iMac that I'm cloning from using Disk Utility and Apple Diagnostics - no issues found (but OSX on that iMac is running very slowly, hence the clone).

In general, I'm wondering if the slowness of CCC points to pending drive failure (despite the OKs from Disk Utility and Diagnostics). I'm still at a loss as to what's going on with that iMac.

 

[chscag]

Welcome to our forums.

That is not normal. It should not be taking near that long. Please refer to the CCC advanced settings and be sure you have chosen not to verify or checksum the data:

https://bombich.com/kb/ccc3/advanced-settings

1. If you are using the checksum option it will take an extremely long time. If that's on, turn it off and do a normal clone, then updates afterward will be very quick.

Also, part of the slowness is because you're using CCC thru the TB target disk mode.

 

[ferrarr]

I have no clue about hybrid drives, but I did 400gb last weekend and it took about 2 hours to get everything off my internal SSD to my 5400rpm clone. Then when I cloned back after I was done doing what I wanted, it took a little longer cloning back to the SSD from the 5400rpm clone. I used a firewire 800 enclosure for my clone.

It does seem like there is an issue with the hybrid drive.

 

[Rod]

I'm curious as to why you are running through Target Disk mode and I concur with everyone else if you are using the Checksum option it will take ages. My 500Gb backs up from new in about 2 Hrs. However CCC does advise that you could run Checksum once a month or so but I prefer to check for corruption in other ways.

 

[tyhenry]

Hi thanks for the pointers, all.

I had some trouble finding the checksum option - I guess it's been renamed in CCC4 (which I'm using) to: "Find and replace corrupted files". It's unchecked.

Here's my screen (had to remove some identifying info...):



Also, I'm on the 30 day trial of CCC... I didn't notice anything on the site saying the trial had performance limitations but maybe?

Rod - I'm using Target Disk mode because the iMac that contains the drive is running OSX super slowly, to the point where it's unusable. I've been scratching my head as to why. (Booting in Safe Mode on that computer allows it to be usable at least (but still really slow)). All drive health checks (run on that computer and in target disk mode from the other) have turned out fine. Also all hardware checks.

Of course, I'm guessing now that the slowness of that computer and the slowness of the cloning process are probably related... likely pointing to a drive on the edge of failure, but still functional enough to pass the drive checks. Hopefully the clone finishes before it meets its maker...

My plan, is after the clone, to try booting from the external clone to see if it truly is a hard drive hardware issue.

 

[harryb2448]

I would anticipate so tyhenry. For example, SuperDuper, similar to CCC, unregistered (trial version) backs up at around 20Mb/ps. The regisered version backs up at around the 180Mb/ps. Depending on your operating system, I suggest running Recovery Mode and verifying the hard drive. If OS X.6 or earlier, use the original DVD to run Repair Disk.


https://support.apple.com/en-au/HT201314

 

[Rod]

I understand now. Obviously t would be good if you could finish the CCC clone before doing anything else. Personally I would have tried to verify and or repair before cloning but I already have a backup so that doesn't apply to you. We all advise people to do this before they have an issue rather than after. Still you can only work with what you have. So if the CCC works then follow Harry's advice above. If not try to save what you can an item at a time by copying to an EHD. I know this is a pain but not that difficult. I had an unrepairable hardware problem with my MBP just one week ago. I did have a clone but Apple gave me a brand new MBP so I thought I would take the opportunity to rid myself of excess baggage and just copy the things I could not replace and re download everything else. Really it is not too time consuming. I downloaded most of my apps from App Store purchases in one hit and most of the rest were just documents and media. So your priorities should be you photo library, music library and documents. If you have your contacts backed up to iCloud or Google or on another device like a phone then everything else is replaceable.