I’ve been following this “conversation†for some time now in the hope that it would help me decide when to make the leap to Big Sur. Just like Plantsower I guess. The view count of over 1000 and over 70 replies suggests quite a few others might have also. It hasn’t helped.
I usually wait until version 2 or 3 of a new OS to allow creases to be ironed out. Version 3, I think, is around the corner and, despite the concerns aired here about bootable clones etc, I will take the leap when it does arrive. I can’t wait any longer. CCC has been part of my backup strategy for a long time (and will continue to be) but I only ever booted from the resultant clone to run Diskwarrior for the occasional maintenance check. I don’t do that any more
I similarly wait at least until the third version of a new Mac OS arrives. Besides getting bugs worked out, I have a requirement that
all my third party software I use is compatible with the new OS. In the case of Big Sur, it eventually came down to 2 such programs: SuperDuper! and Tech Tool Pro. Unfortunately, SuperDuper! is not yet compatible, but given that Carbon Copy Cloner works fine with Big Sur and Intel-based Macs, I am good to go in that regard. For Tech Tool Pro, Micromat did recently release V13.0.2 of Tech Tool Pro for Big Sur compatibility on Intel-based Macs (both of my machines are Intel-based). Unfortunately, with V11.2.2, I could not create the needed eDrive with that version of Tech Tool Pro (other folks who use Tech Tool Pro had the same issue). From discussions here, it seems there were issues in V11.2.2 of Big Sur that possibly caused the issue. V11.3 supposedly corrects those issues.
In any event, when V11.3 is released, I will test it on my test external Samsung T7 1 TB SSD, along with V13.0.2 of Tech Tool Pro. If all is well, I'll move from Catalina, V10.15.7, to Big Sur, V11.3, along with moving to Carbon Copy Cloner. But I know I'll miss SuperDuper!.
I also rarely need to boot from my clone, but when the need arises, I was sure glad I could.
