What's new in CCC |
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Changes in CCC 3.5
The most notable modification in CCC 3.5 is its qualification on Mountain Lion. Most features and the user interface remain the same for this update, there have only been a few minor changes with regards to cloning the Recovery HD volume in CCC's Disk Center. See the Release Notes for a complete list of modifications.
Interface changes in CCC 3.4
The "Backup everything" and "Incremental backup of selected items" cloning "methods" that were present in CCC 3.3.7 and earlier have been removed. Their presence fostered a great misunderstanding about how CCC works. CCC backs up everything by default, so a separate popup menu for this functionality is unnecessary. For those who miss it, you'll find a new filter in the "Gear" menu that will fill that void. CCC always uses an "incremental" method to copy files. Every time CCC performs a backup task, it copies only the files are different (based on size and modification date).
The popup menu under the Destination menu now refers to settings that control how existing data on the destination will be handled. If you used the "Backup everything" cloning method and "Delete items that don't exist on the source" option in the past, use the "Delete anything that doesn't exist on the source" preset moving forward to achieve the same goal.
Accessing the block-level clone option
CCC 3.3.7 was too ambiguous about the block-level clone. The set of conditions required for a block-level clone were documented, of course, but they were not reinforced in the user interface, and that became very frustrating for many users. Additionally, sometimes a block-level copy was not desired, but was attempted anyway because it was possible. This led to longer backup times rather than super fast updates.
CCC 3.4 makes the block-level copy explicit and very easy to specify. Choose "Preferences..." from the Carbon Copy Cloner menu, then check the box to "Indicate when a block-level clone is possible" to enable this feature. When enabled, a "Block copy" button will appear adjacent to the Destination menu. If the source, destination, and settings are amenable to a block-level copy, the Block Copy button will be enabled. Click the button to specify a block-level clone. If the button is disabled, a tool tip will tell you why — simply hover your mouse over the Block Copy button to reveal this text.
New in 3.4.2: Click on the lock to authenticate CCC, and this will allow CCC to get a "second opinion" about whether a block-level copy can proceed. In many cases, the second opinion is more liberal and permits the block-level copy.
Be sure to check out CCC 3.4's other new features
Beyond the interface changes described above, CCC 3.4 delivers over a dozen significant new features. This isn't an ordinary dot-release to address Lion compatibility! Here are some of the new features:
- Back up to and from network volumes (e.g. AFP, SMB, via "File Sharing")
- Back up to and from non-HFS+ volumes
- Folder-to-folder backups
- Restore user data directly to the startup disk without restarting
- Growl and email notifications
- Sleep, shutdown, and restart after a scheduled task
- Automatically mount and unmount local and network-attached volumes before and after a task
- A new "Update a file only if its newer on the source" option
- Automatic archive pruning
- Checksum-analysis of files on your source and destination to find corrupted-but-otherwise-unmodified files
- Bandwidth management for backups to a remote Macintosh
- A new "Disk Center" that offers information about how your volumes are partitioned and formatted, as well as performance statistics
- The new "Cloning Coach" offers proactive insight on potential configuration problems as well as expert advice directly to the user about any errors that were encountered during the backup task. When CCC discovers filesystem corruption and media failures, the errors are now explained in layman's terms, with simple advice on how to resolve the errors. A convenient "Reveal in Finder" or "Launch Disk Utility" button gets you on your way to resolving complex problems.
- New in 3.4.4: Support for cloning Lion's Recovery HD volume
- New in 3.4.4: Create an installer disk of the Mac OS X Lion Installer
- New in 3.4.4: Scheduled tasks can now wake or power on your Mac
- New in 3.4.4: New option to hide the scheduled task helper application's progress window
For a more detailed list of changes in each release of CCC, see the Release History.