Expert’s Rating
Pros
Cons
Our Verdict
Excellent customer funding and a supportive residential area , combined with frequent update , make this ready to hand utility well deserving a shot .
For 22 years , Bombich Software ’s Carbon Copy Cloner has been one of the absolute go - to utilities for cloning data point from one volume to another on the Mac . When the software first arrived in 2002 , it was considered a flake tricky to practice , but worth see at . Over the X , Carbon Copy Cloner ’s feature of speech set has originate , and it has become increasingly reliable in its core task : getting deadened - on sodding copies of your file cabinet where they need to be .
The software retails for $ 49.99/£40.10 for a Personal and Household licence ( an upgrade license is up to 50 % off ) . There ’s also an easy - to - begin , full - featured 30 - day tribulation with no news report needing to be created or credit or debit card sent along to the company to be bill later . If you like it and require to make up for it , it can always be bought after , a respectful chapeau tip to Bombich ’s former experience as a shareware caller .
The Volumes view of the Carbon Copy Cloner’s home screen.
To set about , simply download Carbon Copy Cloner fromBombich , install it , assign it full permissions over your hard drive , and you ’re lay out .
Carbon Copy Cloner 7.0.1 require macOS 13 Ventura or later to install and bunk , patronage the HFS+ and APFS drive data formatting , and can back up to local volumes as well as NAS - enable volumes sit on a web , but is ineffective to back up Windows Indian file formats , to optical media such as CD - ROM or DVD - ROM , or to entanglement - based platforms such as WebDAV , FTP , NFS , various swarm platform , or Apple ’s Time Machine platforms .
Foundry
The Volumes view of the Carbon Copy Cloner’s home screen.
Carbon Copy Cloner does n’t assay to be the Swiss Army tongue of Mac clone utility and instead plays extremely well to its durability . During examination , stock cloning went through without a hitch , and Bombich has outfitted newer version of its package with a more comprehensive drug user interface , filter that can be customized so only necessary files are clone , accessible use of Apple ’s Snapshots technology , and well-to-do accession to an astounding array of configuration options , such as disc encoding , task notes , and bandwidth configuration for NAS backups .
Other tools , such as scheduling , performed without a hitch , and the labor handler shone in its ability to save and configure multiple backup tasks . A nerveless scripting feature allows for custom scripts to be loaded and activated as need for ability drug user , and a ready to hand quick horizon of each mount volume show useful information such as the communications protocol it ’s using , beat back technology , possession scene , drive format , and encryption status . Carbon Copy Cloner ’s SafetyNet feature can also be configure to allow for drive arrange or lay off a process before it overwrites data on a volume , which is a good summation .
There are only a couple of weakly head for Bombich to address with Carbon Copy Cloner 7.0.1 , and one of them is due more to Apple ’s lack of nakedness than a failing on Bombich ’s part . Creating a boot drive in Carbon Copy Cloner is currently a strike - or - young lady proposition , and test trial at creating a bootable external mass of my M2 Mac Studio ’s self-colored - state drive met with what I initially thought was a victory that later failed . While the operating system was cloned over flawlessly , Apple ’s requirement for verification of the operating system from the external volume prevent the unit from booting successfully . This is due to Apple ’s current protocols , and in the past , it was far easier to create a bootable external drive that could pronto serve as a backup boot partition for an Intel - base Mac . Bombich recommends the exploiter work out with the Legacy Bootable Copy Assistant option , but this is still up in the air until Apple and the developer community can detect some common ground on this topic .
Configuring the Task Filter in Carbon Copy Cloner.
at last , the initial Mary Leontyne Price of the software is a bit of a sticking point , and while $ 24.99 hits the sweet stain for an upgrade , the initial asking Leontyne Price of $ 49.99 is in high spirits than one might expect , even if the package more than pays off in the long runnel .
Should you buy Carbon Copy Cloner?
While Bombich ’s current quibble with Apple over bootable driving force creation is annoying , this is n’t a deal breakers and other utilities are facing the same issues with everyone ’s favorite fruit company . That being tell , Carbon Copy Cloner pairs off well with usefulness such as Time Machine , Apple ’s Migration Assistant , and SuperDuper ! . The ship’s company ’s client financial backing and feedback are both friendly and rapid , the software system offers quick access to help guides and resources , and there ’s a supportive community that live and take a breather this utility . This , combine with frequent updates from the developer only makes the software better , and if Carbon Copy Cloner is n’t in your arsenal of handy utilities , you should download it and give it a shot , as it should be .
Setting up scheduled backups in Carbon Copy Cloner.
