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Question

New and old clones on harddrive

Aug 21, 2017 6:58AM PDT

I cloned my old Macbook Pro onto an external harddrive.

Then I bought a new Macbook, and set it up using the Time Machine backup of the old Macbook Pro.

If I clone the new Macbook onto the same external harddrive, will it be recognised as the old Macbook Pro, and thus only clone whatever additional files I added since the setup of the new Macbook?

The reason I'm asking is because the cloning of the old Macbook Pro took very long to encrypt. I want the cloning of the new Macbook to be recognised as an updated version of the clone of the old Macbook Pro so that it only clones whatever additional files were added/changed, thus taking a shorter time and without having to redo the entire clone and go through the encryption process again.

I'm using Carbon Copy Cloner, if that helps. Thanks!

Discussion is locked

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Answer
When I've cloned.
Aug 21, 2017 7:04AM PDT

I didn't see any difference when encryption was on or off. My guess why is that the speed is due to link speed (mostly USB 2 or 3 speeds) and the HDD write speed limits.

By current definition a clone would not leave out files. A clone should be whole.

What you might be looking for is what Time Machine does already. That is, only the changes are copied over.

So you might be searching for another backup solution but since you have the cloner and Time Machine, you should be fine on backups right now.

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Clarifications...
Aug 21, 2017 7:22AM PDT

Thank you for your answer.

Actually, for Carbon Copy Cloner, I realised that while the initial backup is slow, subsequent "backups" also only copy over changes made since the last backup.

Also, I myself had a difference in time taken when encryption was on vs off. I'm not sure if it's the same as yours, but for mine, the cloning/Time Machine backup process is one process, and the encryption process is another separate process, and it is the latter which takes extremely long.

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My clarification
Aug 21, 2017 7:32AM PDT

I don't use the Apple too often so here the backup encrypts on the fly and machines are most i5 or i7 CPUs with gobs of RAM. Usually 8 or 16GB today.

I can't guess why the encryption. Here we don't since we can lock up the backup copy and want backups to be unencumbered, not blocked if we needed to restore.

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Answer
Well I'm not sure about the license agreement
Aug 22, 2017 5:35AM PDT

wit Apple but I assume it's similar to Windows. Windows doesn't license cloning form 1 machine to another except with an Enterprise license. You are licensed to clone your machine and restore to the same machine.

Post was last edited on August 22, 2017 5:49 AM PDT

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Apple is very different.
Aug 22, 2017 6:07AM PDT

Since Apple's OS only runs on Apple's hardware the license is less restrictive about clones from one machine to another.

It's a different world for Apple.