Cloning Big Sur possible?

[Connie Mac]

So, I managed to install Big Sur onto a 250 GB SATA 2.5" SSD just to see if I could do it. I'm surprised at how easy it was. But now, I want to install onto a 2 TB SSD m.2 PCIe card and I've discovered that Carbon Copy Cloner doesn't work. Is there a solution for cloning? I'd rather just clone the test install drive to the larger m.2 if I can.

 

[bmoag]

If Carbon Copy Cloner did not work I would not be able to use my Big Sur machine which is running on a 480gb SSD cloned from a 240gb SSD. You may not have the latest version or may have misunderstood the disclaimers?

 

[Connie Mac]

Hmm, I will double-check that. I had used CCC as previously with other versions of macOS by cloning from the source SSD with Big Sur to the PCIe m.2. After the cloning was done, I copied the EFI folder from the Big Sur source SSD to the m.2 drive (named "macOS"). After that, I shut down the computer, removed the SSD and tried to boot but at the OpenCore screen, the macOS m.2 drive was not listed. It was initialized as APFS just like the SSD.

 

[tedyun]

This is an issue with the way that Apple overhauled the system drive process for Big Sur. If you Google "Carbon Copy Cloner and Big Sur" you will find the Bombich FAQ entry describing the issue.

They present a workaround, but it sounds like you clone the drive, then install Big Sur on top of it.

 

[HawkTron]

After that, I shut down the computer, removed the SSD and tried to boot but at the OpenCore screen, the macOS m.2 drive was not listed. It was initialized as APFS just like the SSD.

Long shot, but by any chance did you clear NVRAM? sometimes that's all it takes to see the changes you made.

I was able to make a bootable clone of my main drive to an external ssd with the latest version of CCC
What CCC wont due (at present) is to clone Big Sur updates. What you will have to do for that is to download the full installer from Apple app store.

 

[Jamesbond007]

This is an issue with the way that Apple overhauled the system drive process for Big Sur. If you Google "Carbon Copy Cloner and Big Sur" you will find the Bombich FAQ entry describing the issue.

They present a workaround, but it sounds like you clone the drive, then install Big Sur on top of it.

Frequently asked questions about CCC and macOS 11 | Carbon Copy Cloner | Bombich Software

bombich.com

This is the most important issue I have with Big Sur : If I can't clone the Big Sur system from one disk to another, the OS is useless to me. I don't want to have to reinstall the OS every time I need to move to another disk.

The cited FAQ seems to say that a bootable clone of Big Sur SHOULD be possible with Carbon Copy Cloner, but with caveats, all due to Apple's new "Signed System Volume" (SSV).

I have decided to stay away from Big Sur at this point. I would rather not deal with problems related to the SSV (e.g. cloning, lack of standalone updates).

 

[Connie Mac]

The cited FAQ seems to say that a bootable clone of Big Sur SHOULD be possible with Carbon Copy Cloner, but with caveats, all due to Apple's new "Signed System Volume" (SSV).

Thanks for that info. So, after using CCC, I need to make sure the EFI partition on the new drive should be empty before running the Big Sur installer from the USB thumb drive, correct?

 

[Connie Mac]

OK, just got Big Sur installed on a 2 TB SATA m.2 SSD (Z390 Gaming X) and am now using Migration Assistant to move my Apps and home folder over to it. So far, it's been pretty easy (fingers crossed).

 

[Jamesbond007]

OK, just got Big Sur installed on a 2 TB SATA m.2 SSD (Z390 Gaming X) and am now using Migration Assistant to move my Apps and home folder over to it. So far, it's been pretty easy (fingers crossed).

So you have elected to install Big Sur fresh on a new SSD and then migrate the user data from another disk, and not cloning the old Big Sur disk to the new?

May I hear the reason why you decided against the cloning procedure?

 

[madhouse28]

I updated Mojave on my Z97 to Big Sur without issues, I did not update over the Mojave volume, but used a separate hard drive for Big Sur. This was straight forward. When Big Sur was up and running I installed CCC and cloned the drive to a bare drive as CCC wanted full access to erase it. The clone booted without problem on another machine, it even updated to 11.2.3. I'm not 100% sure but I think the main issue maybe CCC might need to be on Big Sur to actually clone it. I upgraded first to Big Sur, so can't say for sure. But that's the way I did it.