Originally Posted by artie505
Originally Posted by joemikeb
Artie we are starting to think more and more alike, but CCC, while convenient, is NOT on my critical list.
  • I make full use of iCloud, both my Desktop and Documents folders are mirrored from iCloud along with the Music and Photos libraries, keychain, mail, etc.. Not only does that keep all of my Apple devices in perfect sync, it conserves storage space on all of them as well, and after self-induced disasters has been instrumental in recovering not only my iPad and iPhone, but to my surprise and great relief, Mac mini as well.
  • Between the Recovery Drive, Time machine, and iCloud the primary reason I have for a clone would be speed of recovery from a disaster and I would still are likely to end up resorting to Migration Assistant and Time Machine, or relying on iCloud to recover the latest changes.

…so I can easily get by without a clone.
Since I don't use either iCloud or Time Machine, I'll stick/I'm stuck with my CCC clones.

The Recovery Drive/Migration Assistant process is very significantly more time consuming than simply restoring from a clone, and I add so little new data to my MBP in the - max - 24 hours that pass between clones that I've been able to recreate it from my head the one or two times I"ve needed to. (I'll probably get bitten by that sooner or later, but what's life without an edge?)

After overcoming the initial difficulty of creating a clone, the remaining "nuisance" factor, with which I can easily live, will be the need to run each macOS update on each clone.

Same here. The things that change the most for me between my weekly SD backups are 1) EMails, 2) transactions in Quicken, and 3) updates to applications (I save them).

As I mentioned before, when I upgrade to a new mac OS (or a new version of it), after having already downloaded the full installer, and it is on the SD backup, I restart the respective Mac from that clone, use Disk Utility there to Erase and Format the internal SSD, navigate to the full installer file, and do a clean, fresh installation of that mac OS. At the end of that, I am offered the opportunity to migrate/copy needed files, folders, etc. from a backup (time Machine or other), or another Mac. Well, I just choose that just completed SD backup, and away it goes. It's not that bad (faster on my Mac Mini than on my MacBook Air).

I much prefer that method than using the Recovery Drive. Has always worked flawlessly for me.

Last edited by MartyByrde; 10/31/20 11:22 PM.