Top all-time · #1548
Bombich Software Blog
Company blog · bombich.com/blogsystemsprogramming
Bombich Software Blog is the company blog at bombich.com, writing about systems and programming. Since 2011, 47 different Hacker News readers have linked it 63 times, most often “Carbon Copy Cloner 7”. It is still writing: the last post was on 2026-10-05, and you can follow it by feed.
Rarely recommended · 0 of 36 sampled comments recommend it?
Why HN links it
HN commenters mostly link bombich.com to recommend Carbon Copy Cloner for macOS bootable backups, and cite its posts on APFS, Time Machine and bootable backups as sources for their points.
Summarised by Claude from a sample of 36 HN comments that link here. Each comment is marked recommending, critical or neutral (citing without judging); how this works.
Carbon Copy Cloner is advanced backup and copying software for macOS. Make bootable backups, schedule automated backups, take snapshots, and restore your Mac with confidence. Download a free 30-day trial.
Most-linked posts?
- Carbon Copy Cloner 79 people · 12 mentions · first linked 2016-04-12
- MacOS may lose data on APFS-formatted disk images5 people · 5 mentions · first linked 2018-02-15
- An analysis of APFS enumeration performance on rotational hard drives4 people · 4 mentions · first linked 2019-09-13
- /4 people · 4 mentions · first linked 2020-02-12
- Carbon Copy Cloner 53 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2017-08-24
- Apple Silicon Macs can't boot from external drive if internal drive failed3 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2021-05-21
- /3 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2012-06-02
- Mac bootable backups have been deprecated for several years3 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2024-12-19
- Pondering the conversion from HFS+ to APFS2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2017-07-12
- Think twice before encrypting your HFS+ volumes on High Sierra2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2017-09-30
What Hacker News says?
This is also the case with APFS on rotational disk drives. Why does APFS perform so much worse on HDD vs SSD? Will Apple fix it? https://bombich.com/blog/2019/09/12/analysis-apfs-enumeratio...
Comment linking /blog/2019/09/12/analysis-apfs-enumeration-performance-on-rotational-hard-drives
on “MacOS Catalina: Slow by Design?”Submitted Apple Silicon Macs can't boot from external drive if internal drive failed as a story · 451 points
HN discussionNice, also compression at file system level can save a lot of space and with current CPU speeds is completely transparent. It is feature from HFS+ that is still works in APFS, but is not officially supported anymore, what is wrong with you Apple ? This tool to enable compression is free and open source https://github.com/RJVB/afsctool Also note about APFS vs HFS+, if you use HDD e.g. as backup media for Time Machine…
Comment linking /blog/2019/09/12/analysis-apfs-enumeration-performance-on-rotational-hard-drives
on “Hyperspace”Submitted MacOS may lose data on APFS-formatted disk images as a story · 396 points
HN discussionMan, Time Machine can fail just as badly. Unknown errors and there is no help or documentation or way to fix it. Carbon Copy Cloner [0] is the way to go for retaining sanity. Absolutely excellent documentation for pretty much any use case. And it works reliably. Not affiliated but after having had terrible experiences with Time Machine I feel compelled to bring it up every time I come across the topic. [0] https://b…
Comment linking /
on “SSD will fail at 40k power-on hours (2021)”Submitted Think twice before encrypting your HFS+ volumes on High Sierra as a story · 212 points
HN discussion> Without Apple, instead of creating an app you would have to create an app and the platform and distribution mechanism etc. And? As Brent Simmons of NetNewsWire et al observed: > We started selling over the web in the mid ’90s. * https://www.forbes.com/sites/robpegoraro/2020/07/29/what-tim... He says they'd give up 5% to a payment processor, not 30%. John Gruber: > To omit the fact that there was — dating back to t…
Comment linking /store
on “ProtonMail CEO calls Apple's forced in-app purchases 'Mafia extortion'”Submitted A bug in macOS 10.15.5 impacts bootable backups as a story · 47 points
HN discussionCarbon Copy Cloner 5.1.23-b1 is available as a universal app and can make bootable backups on Big Sur as well: https://bombich.com/blog/2020/11/03/yes-you-can-have-bootabl...
Comment linking /blog/2020/11/03/yes-you-can-have-bootable-backups-on-macos-big-sur
on “macOS Big Sur”Submitted File Copying Olympics: How File Size Impacts the Race for Performance Gold as a story · 22 points
HN discussionIt's not accepting cookies vs not accepting cookies; it's accepting non-essential (tracking + others) cookies vs rejecting those. While this is an interesting question/argument, I'd argue that adding a cookie to represent that you have rejected all cookies might be considered an acceptable essential cookie, since it's expected you need to reject them all only once. See here for example: https://bombich.com/cookies#e…
Comment linking /cookies
on “Google fined €150M, Facebook €60M for for non-compliance with French legislation”Submitted macOS may lose data on APFS-formatted disk images as a story · 4 points
HN discussionCheck out Carbon Copy Cloner [1] if you haven't already. It will create a bootable clone of your drive, with deltas and versions and all that good stuff. During fast-moving projects I usually clone daily. In the event of a drive failure I can simply reboot the Mac from the clone as if nothing happened, cloning back to new internal drive (or machine in case of theft). [1] http://www.bombich.com/
Comment linking /
on “Creative Cloud outage leaves Adobe users unable to work”Submitted Bootable copies live on in macOS Golden Gate as a story · 3 points
HN discussionSince I am also an avid DSLR photographer, the first decision I made was to use Adobe Lightroom (Classic) as the "single source of truth" to manage all our photos. This means obviously importing all photos taken via my DSLR into Lightroom, but also syncing all photos taken on our iPhones via the Lightroom Mobile App. Lightroom Classic keeps all the (compressed) photos in the Adobe cloud for easy sharing and browsing…
Comment linking /
on “Ask HN: What is your system for backing up family photos and video?”Submitted Mac bootable backups have been deprecated for several years as a story · 3 points
HN discussionCan I make a suggestion? 1) Before sending your Mac in for repair, use Carbon Copy Cloner [1] or SuperDuper! [2] to make a clone of your system drive to a spare SSD. 2) When your Mac is returned to you, if the system drive has been wiped, then use the same software to restore your backup. Both these programs are free (gratis) for the described use, and have a reputation for reliability. The spare SSD drive will cost…
Comment linking /
on “macOS to FreeBSD migration a.k.a. why I left macOS”Submitted An analysis of APFS enumeration performance on rotational hard drives as a story · 3 points
HN discussionI could not recommend Carbon Copy Cloner enough. It makes your external hard disk bootable and verbatim has the same files as your mac. This is for Mac only. Think of a dd with a nice interface. Costs $40. https://bombich.com/
Comment linking /
on “Arq 5: Massively faster backup and restore for Mac and Windows”Submitted MacOS may lose data on APFS-formatted disk images as a story · 3 points
HN discussionEither of SuperDuper! http://www.shirt-pocket.com/SuperDuper/SuperDuperDescription... or Carbon Copy Cloner https://bombich.com/ is great for making a complete, bootable copy of a drive.
Comment linking /
on “Arq 5: Massively faster backup and restore for Mac and Windows”Submitted Bootable macOS backups have been deprecated for several years as a story · 2 points
HN discussionI suggest using Carbon Copy Cloner [0]. I have been bitten by Time Machine corrupting itself and I'm never going back. It works well and they have excellent documentation for pretty much every scenario. And USB backups are bootable. I'm mostly using it with backup to a NAS. [0] https://bombich.com/
Comment linking /
on “I nearly lost the Lightroom catalog with of all my photos”Submitted Carbon Copy Cloner 7 as a story · 2 points
HN discussionOn macOS, two backup programs are doing this: * https://www.shirt-pocket.com/SuperDuper/SuperDuperDescriptio... * https://bombich.com Also, Little Snitch, a network monitoring/firewall tool: * https://www.obdev.at/products/littlesnitch/index.html
Comment linking /
on “Ask HN: Is anyone making money selling traditional downloadable software?”Submitted macOS Ventura: ExFAT filesystem corruption as a story · 2 points
HN discussionThis applies only too MacOS. I use CCC(Carbon Copy Cloner) to do a full bootable volume backup, which is triggered every night, around 9pm. I go to sleep after 10, so I can switch off my desktop. When I move to a new machine, I use Setup Assistant or Migration Assistant to migrate data from a CCC backup to a new Mac. [1] Has worked seamlessly for me across devices as well: :laptops, Mac mini and iMacs. [1]: https://…
Comment linking /kb/ccc5/i-want-clone-my-entire-hard-drive-new-hard-drive-or-new-machine
on “Ask HN: Configuration Management for Personal Computer?”Submitted Folders with High File Counts as a story · 2 points
HN discussionI have had Time Machine fail on me when I tried to restore from a backup on the network that was not unmounted properly. It would not let me get to it in any way, and trying to debug the issue from public forums was impossible. In the end I gave up on it as most important files were backed up separately. Now I'm using Carbon Copy Cloner [0]. It has the same ease of use as Time Machine, it gives you bootable backups…
Comment linking /
on “Ask HN: Configuration Management for Personal Computer?”Submitted Beyond Bootable Backups: Adapting recovery strategies for an evolving platform as a story · 2 points
HN discussion
