Q: Need recommendation for bootable External HD for CCC

You keep making that claim, however that claim is baseless. You cannot perform a full boot to desktop from TM. Period.

You're right, you can't, or at least you no longer can. This was available under earlier OS versions (Snow Leopard and earlier I believe) however under Lion, Mt. Lion and Mavericks the boot for a Time Machine restoration is done via a boot into the Recovery Partition. The same Recovery Partition you and you SuperDuper! developer mate tell people that they don't need.

From http://support.apple.com/kb/ht1427…

Restoring your entire system from a backup

 

If you are restoring a backup made by a Mac to the same Mac

 

Hold down the Command and R keys at startup to start the computer from the Recovery system. The Recovery menu that appears includes the option to restore from a Time Machine backup. If you are using Mac OS X Snow Leopard, start your computer from the installation disc. Then use the "Restore From Time Machine Backup" utility.

Tony T1 

Why would you want to boot to a Desktop from TM? 

You wouldnt and you cant. My point is Etre above keeps making the claim you can boot from TM, confusing a full boot to desktop with a TM "boot to recovery" ......2 diff. things entirely.

Tony T1 

If your Mac HD Dies,

          Install a New HD in your Mac

............Yes,.....however you have to restore FROM time machine TO the new HD.......takes a long time....... with a HD clone,....all that nonsense is removed.

          Boot to the Recovery partition on TM.

............Yes, you can boot to recovery,.....then what?....you still have a dead internal HD.........with a dead internal HD and a TM backup you cant get to desktop without opening the macbook, ....installing a new HD,......running TM........putting files on the new blank formatted HD from the TM backup........time time time, and hassle.

         Restore to your New HD.........

..Why restore? If you have a HD clone which takes 40 mins to make [long before any HD crash /corruption] (average),...

when you have a crash with a clone, its

1. remove bad HD. 

2. insert HD clone. 

3. turn your Mac on and go.

infinite vortex 

You're right, you can't

Bingo (~thank you)

From http://support.apple.com/kb/ht1427…

Restoring your entire system from a backup

 

If you are restoring a backup made by a Mac to the same Mac

 

Hold down the Command and R keys at startup to start the computer from the Recovery system. The Recovery menu that appears includes the option to restore from a Time Machine backup.

 

If you are using Mac OS X Snow Leopard, start your computer from the installation disc. Then use the "Restore From Time Machine Backup" utility.

 

 

 

Yes, .......some lexicon definitions need to be made between:

 

A: recovery (from TM to a corrupted HD)

B: boot-to-Recovery (for a TM backup to begin to write to a newly installed HD)

C: FULL-Boot from a HD clone which: -  circumvents time in recovery

-circumvents ANY internal HD corruption

-circumvents ANY dead internal HD

-seriously circumvents downtime.

 

 

If you have only 2 things on you when traveling, your Mac, and your TM backup drive, and your internal HD dies,....you're sunk.

 

TM cant perform any magic on a dead internal HD.

 

(and to please Etre,....none of this is the advocation that anyone shouldn't use TM,.....I am not advocating that)

 

 

 

 

 

babowa Pacific NW 

We are in a very interesting discussion here and I am trying to read everyone's posts and opinions, but your liberal use of so many different colors/fonts/formatting/styling in one post make it extremely difficult and confusing for me

 

 

Appologies for that, I got too used to making colored notes in my studies over many many books that I needed to highlight for reading expediency, makes it easy for me, ......some hate it.  

If I may be so bold to make a suggestion/request:

We are in a very interesting discussion here and I am trying to read everyone's posts and opinions, but your liberal use of so many different colors/fonts/formatting/styling in one post make it extremely difficult and confusing for me. As an example (condensed):

You keep making that claim, however that claim is baseless. You cannot perform a full boot to desktop from TM. Period.

Grant Bennet-Alder West of Boston, USA 

May 22, 2013 9:32 AM

The Time Machine Data drive is not bootable in itself,

Michael Black N.C., USA 

   No sorry, TM backups are not bootable

wjosten 

No, you can't boot from a Time Machine Disk.

Linc Davis 

Time Machine backup volume will boot into Recovery,

etresoft The 905 

So what I am supposed to do with my MacBook Pro and clone? Carry around the clone drive everywhere I go for the rest of my days?

Using the 'quote' button in the tool bar and regular/default formatting makes a post so much easier to read - at least this is the case for me and I would appreciate using mostly the standard settings. Thank you.

PlotinusVeritas wrote:

 

 

Tony T1 

If your Mac HD Dies,

          Install a New HD in your Mac

............Yes,.....however you have to restore FROM time machine TO the new HD.......takes a long time....... with a HD clone,....all that nonsense is removed.

 

Well, if my Clone is a day old, and my TM BU is one hour old, I'll take my TM Restore over my Clone.

And it does not take a long time.

         Restore to your New HD.........

..Why restore? If you have a HD clone which takes 40 mins to make [long before any HD crash /corruption] (average),...

when you have a crash with a clone, its

1. remove bad HD. 

2. insert HD clone. 

3. turn your Mac on and go.

Sure, if you didn't do any work during the time from the Clone to the New HD

Well, if my Clone is a day old, and my TM BU is one hour old, I'll take my TM Restore over my Clone.

And it does not take a long time.

Sure, if you didn't do any work during the time from the Clone to the New HD

~~ I was speaking of Hd clones vs. TM in light of major hd corruption or failure,....not which contained the most recent data modifications.

If youre trying to get back a 1 hour old file you erased etc., then obviously it is (hopefully, since some people only TM their Macs every so often) on your TM backup.

in the use of hD clones exclusively a far more reliable method is have, say a 1 month old clone and all data since has been stored as needed on an external formatted HD

I havent lost data in 20+ years and never will,  regardless of time machine, and i incorporate at least 800gig a month recently (mostly Pdf files)

PlotinusVeritas wrote:

 

~~ I was speaking of Hd clones vs. TM in light of major hd corruption or failure,....not which contained the most recent data modifications.

 

If youre trying to get back a 1 hour old file you erased etc., then obviously it is (hopefully, since some people only TM their Macs every so often) on your TM backup

No, what I'm saying is, if I have TM backing up automatically every hour, an I'm also making a Clone (...obviously on a longer schedule), and my HD crashes, then, at most, I lose an hours work if I restore from TM.  If the clone wa s made yesterday, I lose a day's work.

in the use of hD clones exclusively a far more reliable method is have, say a 1 month old clone and all data since has been stored as needed on an external formatted HD

Huh? Restore a 1 mo old snapshop and then try to remember what files you copied over the last 30 days to another external HD?

And then install any OSX and other software update that ocurred over the past month?  Yeah, that's faster

Why copy as needed to an external HD? Use TM to copy to the external HD (or better, over your network), and have the Clone as add'l security, if needed.

PlotinusVeritas wrote:

Time Machine makes people lazy, and precludes the notion of REDUNDANCY.

Actually, beginning with Mountain Lion Time Machine supports backing up to multiple hard drives. For example, if two TM drives are connected to a Mac, TM will alternate between them on an hourly basis. If one is removed, for instance to a second secure location, hourly backups continue being made to the connected one & the next time the older out-of-date one is connected it gets the next hourly backup, bringing it up to date.

It's a very elegant, flexible solution. You can have an unlimited number of TM backup drives so that the oldest, most out of date one gets the next backup without users having to remember which one is which. You can see at a glance from the TM system preferences window the dates of the first & last backup of each TM drive associated with the system, even when one or more of them is not currently attached to it. The OS will even warn you when one has gone ten days without a backup.

You keep making that claim, however that claim is baseless. You cannot perform a full boot to desktop from TM. Period.

Nobody is claiming you can boot into a ready-to-go, working version of the startup drive from TM. You have beat the stuffings out of that straw man, but it does nothing to further the discussion. It just needlessly confuses things. BTW, infinite vortex was wrong about this. It has never been possible to do that with TM.

Wrong again, Time machines files are BEHIND software.{...} Time machine software is always needed to retrieve data behind Time Machine software.

You are wrong about that. The TM software makes it easy to scan through various dated backups, to restore files to their original location (optionally keeping both copies if there already is a version at that location) & so on, but nothing prevents you from opening a dated backup in Finder & copying any of its files to another drive, or using some other utility like Terminal to do the same thing. The only thing special about how TM stores backups is the use of hard links to make it easy for users to see every file in a dated backup set in one place regardless of where they actually are on the drive, & you don't need the TM software to do that.

I never told anyone not to use Time Machine, I said a HD clone is superior in ABC.....XYZ.

I have no idea what that is supposed to mean, & I doubt anybody else besides maybe you does either. It would help if you could make an effort to cut down on the needless editorial comments & superfluous punctuation, stick to the facts, follow the normal quoting conventions like babora mentioned, & when you do reply to a quote keep it simple & relevant to whatever you are quoting. No offense intended but as it is, it is too much like trying to follow the rantings of an angry self-important blogger who thinks all the extra fluff gives his musings more impact & credibility, when in fact it does the opposite. (I'm not saying you are one of those people, just that it is a hazard of that over-the-top style.)

Even Joe Blow is saving and creating HUGE amounts of data in terabytes. TM and a HD clone are both worthless utterly and completely in that case.

Certainly some users are creating many TB's of data but a) I don't think that is true of the average "Joe Blow" & b) even for those that are neither clones nor TM backups are "utterly & completely" worthless. Obviously I hope, it is always a good idea to maintain an up-to-date backup of what is on the startup drive, as well as multiple copies of anything important that is not.

Appologies for that, I got too used to making colored notes in my studies over many many books that I needed to highlight for reading expediency, makes it easy for me, ......some hate it. 

Thanks!!!!

Tony T1  

No, what I'm saying is, if I have TM backing up automatically every hour, an I'm also making a Clone (...obviously on a longer schedule), and my HD crashes, then, at most, I lose an hours work if I restore from TM.  If the clone wa s made yesterday, I lose a day's work.

Huh? Restore a 1 mo old snapshop and then try to remember what files you copied over the last 30 days to another external HD?

Easy way around all that,... compartmentalize ALL working files on the Mac into a folder or two, copy those folders to likewise folders on an external HD as needed.

Unlike yourself, I create and import huge amounts of data ( as do most people more and more so).....in which case Time machine is useless.

Importing and creating 800gig a month or so, why on earth would I want to hunt and peck thru time machine?  Its right there on a connected (and another in my case) external HD.

A HD clone, same as a Time Machine is a recovery backup for your SYSTEM (bookmarks, settings, APPS, OS and its updates).

Of course if you want to lump your personal data/ files in with that giant heap, thats your call, but its a bad idea in premise for several mentioned reasons.

Remember what? if you take a 1 month old clone and drop it in.......AND all your working files are in 1 or two folders on your external drive where working files etc are dropped (as needed, hourly, etc.)  you replace the cloned HD "working file(s) A, B, C"   with the newest "A B C" working file on the perpetually connected HD.

In which case you lose NO data ever,....at worst youd lose some web bookmarks and a OS updates or APP update.

Logically, I dont give a hoot, not even a squeak about the OS, APPS, book marks and settings......on a HD clone updated every week, or 2, or 3......its 99% there or more.

I only care about data Ive spent much time on, ....thats stored on formatted external docked naked HD.

Personally a collection of 42 Terabytes and manage 85+ Terabytes, Ive lost no data in 20 years.

Logically why on earth would I want to take a giant bag (time machine) and throw (you cant with large collections) everything and the kitchen sink in that bag? ....OS, Apps, bookmarks, files, data, personal data, on and on.

Large companies dont operate like that,...... same as I recommended, they're saving DATA and spending millions on data archives,...........not OS / System / Application/ Setting  saves.

Time machine is a black hole where everything is "thrown into"

*~A HD clone is a system recovery.......OS, Apps, bookmarks, settings, etc.

*~Data archives is the vault, its got data ONLY in it, saved on multiple redundant HD copies, on DVD burns (however of course I cannot save massive data on 4.7gig DVD),....online archives

newbies use Time machine as a black hole of backup  "its all in there,.....somewhere.....if I need it, I hope its still there and not corrupt".

Anyone who knows rightly to separate out a system backup/recovery (ala clone or TM) and knows to keep their vital data files separate,.......is making things a lot easier than a TM 'backup'.

R C-R Texas, USA 

Nobody is claiming you can boot into a ready-to-go, working version of the startup drive from TM.

Etre is claiming same.

R C-R Texas, USA 

but nothing prevents you from opening a dated backup in Finder & copying any of its files to another drive

I know, Ive looked thru some tmbackupdp folders several times.   however if you think that is "handy" or very useful (which I dont think you do), you know better.

R C-R Texas, USA 

You can have an unlimited number of TM backup drives

Yes, I know TM supports multiple HD,.....however no professional on EARTH (I have heard of a few, sadly that are doing this in their personal bussiness) is storing his/her vital files on a giant daisy chain of TM drives!

The mere thought of that is cringe-worthy.

R C-R Texas, USA 

I said a HD clone is superior in ABC.....XYZ.....//  I have no idea what that is supposed to mean

I stated that very simply, a HD clone has many advantages over a TM backup as a recovery tool from corruption or crash, ....and as said many times, massive files shouldnt be archived on either one.

Some advantages of a cloned HD:

In case of an internal HD crash and failure, there is absolutely nothing quicker to getting back to 100% operation than having a HD clone handy to either boot from, or within 20 mins. installing and removing the bad HD. Nothing to install software-wise, and a speedy immediate return to your computer use and productivity.

If you do an option key startup at boot you can directly boot to your cloned drive externally and operate from same like normal.

Sandboxing: With the help of the Cloned Drive, you can perform sandboxing, or the testing of new software, their updates and applications before they are installed on your Mac system. Moreover, if there are issues with the system, you can troubleshoot them by booting off the Clone. Many people test new APPS or experiment with a secondary clone and never worry about a failure or serious issue since the internal HD is untouched and the secondary clone can be wiped afterwards if any major issue occurs in testing. This is an invaluable tool in many instances

If you sell you computer for purchase of a new one, you can take the clone you have on hand and install same or clone it to the new internal drive of your new Mac.

As it turns out one of the huge positive benefits of a clone is that people were seeing faster HD speeds; with APPS booting up from the clone than they had seen with the internal HD. The cloning applications in cloning the drive defragments the data to the clone and remove the “holes” in the cloning process.

With a small portable HD clone you can take your ‘computer’ anywhere to most any other current Mac and boot from your HD clone and have your entire system and its data immediately there for use. In case one is across the world and their macbook gets stolen, or damaged, with another Mac you can be up and 100% in the time it takes to boot to the new or borrowed Mac!

R C-R Texas, USA 

The TM software makes it easy to scan through various dated backups

Easier than what? doing it with your eyes closed?....looking for files in TM (especially TYPES of files and MANY files is NOT easy with TM)

I can find LOTS of files and individual files over 40 Terabytes on multiple drives quicker with this very low tech method than you can on TM

Screen capture of HD archive contents filed in multiple places for easily finding data and recovering files

R C-R Texas, USA

Obviously I hope, it is always a good idea to maintain an up-to-date backup of what is on the startup drive, as well as multiple copies of anything important that is not.

Its likely we ultimately agree on 95% of things, and are being inflexible on 5%,.....certainly no use "crying over spilled milk" on either of our sides!

Certainly not angry as you suggested, .....I love all of you folks.

If you sell you computer for purchase of a new one, you can take the clone you have on hand and install same or clone it to the new internal drive of your new Mac.

That may not be possible for two reasons:

1. A Mac generally cannot boot from a system older than what it came with - see the kb article here:

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT2186?viewlocale=en_US

and

2. Considering the new licensing requirements of any OS, you need to sell it with the originally installed OS so unless you made a clone of your factory new install, a clone will not help. You need Internet Recovery to comply with Apple's SLA legal requirements.

Babowa

A Mac generally cannot boot from a system older than what it came with

Yes, I know this, ...this is assuming that in most instances you will have access to a recent or identical model Mac.

Just the other day I was experimenting with possible heat problems (which there were none) by booting a clone of one of my Mac Mini onto my macbook Air.

My Mac Mini HD clone boots fine off my macbook Air,...I had yet to test that

As for licensing, obviously I was not advocating in the case of selling your Mac that you have anything other than the original OS and HD (unless it was destroyed from failure or corruption).

~~~I was not speaking of sellling a Mac to another person with a "OS upgrade from a clone"

Gotcha.....