recommendation (OSX): Carbon Copy Cloner

[Patrick Giagnocavo 717-201-3366]

I have just used this tool:

http://www.bombich.com/software/ccc.html

to save a colocated G5 Xserve from extended downtime due to a failing
but not totally dead (Hitachi Deskstar of course!) boot drive.

The original setup of the 3-drive Xserve was with the drives as 3
separate drives, non-RAID, no redundancy.

By moving the data off the second disk to the third disk, I was able to
clone the entire system onto the second disk and "bless" it to be booted
from.  This saved my client from having to next-day FedEx me the media,
and go through a cumbersome re-installation process.

Note:  I ran into a problem with the local NetInfo database, which was a
good idea in the Nextstep 3.x days but appears to have been neglected by
Apple since; see this URL for a resolution:

http://www.kombitz.com/2006/12/01/carbon-copy-cloner-trouble-cannot-login-after-cloning/

It is free for educational use, and fully functional for everyone else
at no charge, though the author does ask for a donation.

Those who want to get fancy, or have a lot of Xserves to install, can
use the netbooting features to have a standard OS image that gets rolled
out to all the systems on a network.

CCC also serves as a backup program of some sort, though I have not yet
tested that.

--Patrick
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[Nadine Miller]

Patrick Giagnocavo wrote:

>
> CCC also serves as a backup program of some sort, though I have not yet
> tested that.

I use CCC as my imaging program before doing major OS upgrades, or
whenever I'm fiddling around with disks or other hardware that might
fsck up a hard drive.

I've also used it as a snapshot of sorts when I'm doing something odd
like trying to merge home directories, iPhoto or iTunes databases, etc.
  It's straightforward and I don't need to read a man page to remember
how to use it for one-offs.

I don't know that I'd use it for regular backups, though.

Bombich did a lot of the original net boot investigation and testing to
offer OS X sys admins options and ideas for automation.  I still need to
test some ideas of my own that his presentation at Mac World inspired.

=Nadine=
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