UPDATE: 3/9/2021:
Carbon Copy Cloner, a backup tool that allows you to perfectly clone your entire Mac, is ready for macOS Big Sur. This is the main message of a new article published on the official blog of the app. Starting with version 5.1.22, one can clone a Mac with the latest version of the system and restore its data as before in case of problems. Although Carbon Copy Cloner has released a version that works with macOS Big Sur, the developers are aware of the compatibility issues and limitations of the backup tool. It is working together with Apple to address these issues and hopefully iron everything out when Big Sur is finally released to the public. Right now you can install Big Sur onto your CCC backup to make it bootable, and in the future we’ll use Apple’s APFS replication utility (ASR) to clone the Big Sur System volume. Apple has assured us that they are working towards fixing the problems in ASR that prevent it from cloning the Big Sur System volume. Related posts Helicopter Helicopter Market – COVID-19 Industry Impact Analysis, Market Trends, Market Growth, Opportunities and Forecast 2025 Samsung SDI to supply battery cells to start-up EV RivianNews Carbon Copy Cloner is popular software that allows Mac users to easily backup entire disks and partitions on macOS. While macOS Big Sur is about. Charlie from Toms River, NJ Charlie wants to know if he can make a bootable backup of his hard drive with macOS Big Sur using Carbon Copy Cloner. Leo says he can, but it's not all that easy. Apple has changed the way it does things.
I remain unimpressed with the stability of Big Sur. Many users (myself included) are reporting kernel panics when waking from sleep and trouble using external displays with laptops.
In addition, the update process introduced in Big Sur was supposed to *reduce* install time, but has actually done exactly the opposite. Given the number of bugs and requisite updates being released, updates are taking upwards of 45 minutes each, longer if you don’t have a fast internet connection. Details here: https://eclecticlight.co/2021/02/28/last-week-on-my-mac-users-are-losing-out-against-big-surs-sealed-system/
Another problem with Big Sur is the cryptographically signed system volume. This was designed as a security mechanism, but in daily use it means that your Carbon Copy Cloner bootable backup must be erased each and every time the operating system is updated – a problem Apple introduced in Big Sur.
I still recommend Mojave (MacOS 10.14.x) or Catalina (MacOS 10.15.x) and am not recommending Big Sur at this time.
November 12, 2020
Bombich Software
Apple released Big Sur – the newest operating system for the Mac today.
If you’re looking for the quick and dirty “should I install Big Sur?”, the answer is no, not yet.
Read on for more details and information:
Big Sur leverages the changes Apple made in Catalina, when it was released last October. Catalina was the first operating system for the Mac that only supports 64-bit application software. Older 32-bit apps do not and cannot be made to run in Catalina.
In addition, Catalina requires startup disks (including bootable backups) be formatted in the new APFS format, which Apple only supports on SSD media. This means there are ramifications for your backups (i.e. you’ll need new backup drives), if/when you update to Catalina or, as of today, Big Sur.
My observations regarding Catalina remain true – here are more details from back when Catalina was released:
I spent much of the day yesterday arguing with the Big Sur beta installer – not a good sign for stable, hassle-free software. Today’s public release (a gargantuan 12GB download) *seems* better, and Apple released a software update only hours after the initial release – not a confidence builder for well-tested code. I’ve only had a few hours to put it through the paces – so far things seem to be working and it feels snappy on my 2018 15” MacBook Pro.
There are some pretty significant cosmetic changes in Big Sur – for those who aren’t a fan of Apple changing/moving things around, this may be a release you want to wait to install, when you have time become familiar with the new bells and whistles. Here is an excellent comparison of some of the different look and feel changes from Catalina and Big Sur:
Carbon Copy Cloner 5 Big Sur
Bootable backups of Big Sur now require the system volume be cloned using a new software mechanism from Apple known as ASR. The system resides on a cryptographically sealed “Signed System Volume”. That seal can only be applied by Apple; ordinary copies of the System volume are non-bootable without Apple’s seal. To create a functional copy of the macOS 11 Big Sur System volume, Carbon Copy Cloner has to use the ASR tool to copy the system, or install macOS onto the backup. The upshot is that your backup drive will need to be erased the first time you run a clone under Big Sur and your previous backup data will be lost. If this is problematic for you, you can re-run the initial backup of your Big Sur Mac to a new external hard drive. More about Carbon Copy Cloner and ASR here:
So, my advice for now is to wait to download and install Big Sur. Give it and other third party software time to mature. And of course, I wouldn’t be me if I didn’t remind you to update your bootable clone backup immediately before downloading any software updates, especially new operating systems. And don’t run your backup again for a few days, until you’re certain everything is working as expected.
Carbon Copy Cloner Big Sur M1
In a previous post I mentioned I was trying out the Big Sur beta. This was actually on my iMac with a fusion drive that I wasn’t using for much else, but now that I had Big Sur on it I started using it more and the slowness of the fusion drive started getting on to me. It’s been a while since I used regular drives, and while the fusion drive is supposed to be better than regular drives due to the 32GB (in my case) of SSD caching it provides I hated it. Any other time I wouldn’t have purchased an iMac with a fusion drive, but I bought this iMac at a time when I wanted something urgently and if I switched the fusion drive to an SSD it added a couple of days to the delivery times and so I skipped it.
Anyways, fast forward and now I have Big Sur on it and it was slow as hell and irritating. Then I read somewhere that one can boot macOS from an external drive. In fact that’s how sensible people tried out their beta versions – not by installing it on their primary partition like I had done. :) So I decided to go down that route. I could have got an SSD but I went ahead and bought a 2TB NVMe drive and an USB-C to NVMe enclosure – which on paper is expensive, and it really is mind you, but is still cheaper than buying something like the Samsung X5 of a similar capacity (the price difference being due to the fact that the X5 has Thunderbolt to NVMe and so you get 40Gbps bandwidth whereas the UBC-C one I went for gives me 10Gbps – which was fine in my case, I don’t need 40Gbps, and I couldn’t find any Thunderbolt to NVMe enclosures either).
First I thought I’d try something like Carbon Copy Cloner to clone the internal drive to the NVMe. That didn’t work coz CCC doesn’t work with Big Sur yet and gives a warning that the destination drive won’t be bootable (it does so even before I select a destination drive). I tried to clone and boot anyways and it didn’t work as expected. So what I did instead was the following:
- I erased the NVMe disk as APFS via Disk Utility.
- Then I took a Time Machine backup the installed macOS.
- Rebooted and went into recovery mode (press Cmd-R while rebooting).
- Tried to do a restore of the Time Machine back to the NVMe but it said I must reinstall macOS first. It gives an option to do so there itself, which I did. (Or you could choose to reinstall from the initial menu itself. (Here’s the Apple document to recovery mode for some pictures). Either ways, this will install Big Sur to the disk you specify.
- While booting up into this newly installed OS (it does automatically after the install) I was asked if I want to migrate from a Time Machine backup. I selected to do so, pointed it to my previously created backup, and it restored everything.
- Rebooted, and I was now booting Big Sur from the NVMe disk (speedy!!) and all my data and settings were there.
Some things actually worked better after this. Previously in Big Sur I wasn’t able to get the default colourful wallpaper working as it would bring up the Catalina wallpaper instead. On the new install that works fine. Some apps like Witch and Alfred etc. bring up their permissions dialog again on first login – no big deal. And that’s it really. But boy, macOS runs so blazingly fast now. Every task which used to take a minute or two of me staring at the beach ball previously is now instant. Nice!
Carbon Copy Cloner 5.1.23
Update: Note to self. When rebooting the Mac press the Option key so I am asked which drive to boot from. The NVMe (or any external) disk can sometimes take a while before being recognised and in such case the Mac boots to the fusion drive by default. Also, press Ctrl when selecting the NVMe so it remembers that as the default (not that it matters because I should always press the Option key when rebooting).