How to back up clone while booting from it?

Question

How to back up clone while booting from it?

I back up my Mac using both Time Machine and a bootable clone - the idea being that if 'something goes wrong', I can boot from the clone and keep working. I read somewhere that once you start working from the clone, the clone itself will need to be backed up as changes are made.

My question is, how would I do this? Can I use TM? Assuming the TM drive is still connected, will it treat the clone like the original drive? Or will it continue trying to back up the original drive?

Either way, what is the best way to back up a clone of your primary disk while booting from the clone and using it to work?

Thanks for reading.

MacBook Pro, OS X Mountain Lion (10.8.4)

Posted on Jul 23, 2013 1:46 PM

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Answer 1

Best reply

Kappy

Level 10

361,741 points

Jul 23, 2013 1:51 PM in response to monsoonmalabar

You can start by making a clone of the clone:

Clone Lion/Mountain Lion using Restore Option of Disk Utility

Boot to the Recovery HD:

Restart the computer and after the chime press and hold down the COMMAND and R keys until the menu screen appears. Alternatively, restart the computer and after the chime press and hold down the OPTION key until the boot manager screen appears. Select the Recovery HD and click on the downward pointing arrow button.

1. Select Disk Utility from the main menu then press the Continue

button.

2. Select the destination volume from the left side list.

3. Click on the Restore tab in the DU main window.

4. Select the destination volume from the left side list and drag it

to the Destination entry field.

5. Select the source volume from the left side list and drag it to

the Source entry field.

6. Double-check you got it right, then click on the Restore button.

Destination means the external backup drive. Source means the internal startup drive.

Then you can set up scheduled backups with third-party backup utilities. Or you can get an external drive formatted for OS X and use it for a Time Machine backup. Time Machine will not treat the clone as a continuation of an older drive, rather it will start a completely new backup on the same backup drive. Were you to do this, then erase the backup drive before starting a new Time Machine backup.

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Answer 2

Jul 23, 2013 2:05 PM in response to Kappy

Thanks for the reply.

So with Time Machine, it's best to use a completely new external drive and back up to that?

If I understand correctly, if TM were left on, it would try to back up the clone to the same external drive that the original internal drive is backed up to. Is this correct? If this happened, would it cause problems?

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Answer 3

Kappy

Level 10

361,741 points

Jul 23, 2013 2:18 PM in response to monsoonmalabar

You don't need to buy a new drive unless you wanted to preserve what was on your backup drive. If you have enough space on that drive you don't have to erase it. Time Machine will create a new backup on the drive separate from the one that is already there. I only suggested erasing so that you have all the space on the backup drive available for future backup additions. Time Machine does not overwrite modified files. Rather it archives them. So over time more and more data is added to the drive until it runs out of space.

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Answer 4

Jul 23, 2013 2:21 PM in response to Kappy

Thanks for the helpful answer - much appreciated!

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