,,,the loss of functionality in SuperDuper! and Carbon Copy Cloner is the ability to make a bootable backup (clone). This is a significant distinction from Time Machine. So far on Apple's SoC M1 Macs (to date) SD and CCC can make backups of the data portions of the drive.
Hasn't joemike reported that CCC can consistently make bootable clones of his M1
providing the hardware configuration is copacetic?
Yes I have said that it is possible to consistently make bootable volumes on M1 Macs if everything is copacetic (that word takes me back to my time in the Navy) but, and this is a
BIG but, that process is entirely dependent on the installer to create the crypto-logically sealed APFS
snapshot that is bootable. That puts any possibility of making a clone
the old fashioned direct way beyond the realm of possibility. (It also puts a huge swathe of potential malware exploits into the shredder. 😎)
Apple's ASR utility worked with Intel Macs to create a bootable clone in Catalina and early betas of Big Sur on Intel Macs, but many of the security features have been removed, relocated, reallocated, and/or reshuffled on M1 Macs. For example some security settings that applied to all boot
drives attached to an Intel Mac, are specific to each specific boot
volume group on M1 Macs. While I don't know enough about the inner machinations of M1 Macs and Big Sur to fully apprehend everything that is involved, I know enough to realize that could, and probably has, thrown a major monkey-wrench into the entire ASR design. When you add to that the laws of
unintended circumstances and
Murphy's Law, it is entirely feasible the ASR utility has become the developer's
Gordian's knot. So until someone figures out how to either untie or cut that knot, clones will remain out of reach.
