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I'm trying to clone a disk from macOS Recovery in Disk Utility. In Big Sur, now there is a "System Volume" and a "Data Volume". I'm a little confused. Does that mean I have to partition my destination disk into two new volumes and then "Restore" the system and data volume onto the new partitions?
Is there any way to just restore the whole disk?
Mac mini, macOS 11.0
In Big Sur the system volume is hidden and encrypted. It is not normally possible to clone it as one could with previous OS's. Certainly Disk Utility cannot provide this facility. However, apps like Super Duper and Carbon Copy Cloner have now been allowed by Apple, to do this to some extent.
The Data volume holds your user account and can be backed up using Time Machine. This too has changed in Big Sur to use snapshots extensively and is designed to run best on an SSD. Format it APFS and then if you want, choose to encrypt it from within Time Machine Preferences.
Note that when doing an Erase/Install, you should delete extra volumes and start off with just one APFS volume. The installer will add the system volume and you can then encrypt your data using FileVault.
In Big Sur the system volume is hidden and encrypted. It is not normally possible to clone it as one could with previous OS's. Certainly Disk Utility cannot provide this facility. However, apps like Super Duper and Carbon Copy Cloner have now been allowed by Apple, to do this to some extent.
The Data volume holds your user account and can be backed up using Time Machine. This too has changed in Big Sur to use snapshots extensively and is designed to run best on an SSD. Format it APFS and then if you want, choose to encrypt it from within Time Machine Preferences.
Note that when doing an Erase/Install, you should delete extra volumes and start off with just one APFS volume. The installer will add the system volume and you can then encrypt your data using FileVault.
How to clone/restore a disk in Big Sur disk utility
