TimeMachine disk out of space? Sort it with Carbon Copy Cloner

If your Time Machine drive is running out of space and you want to keep a nice long backup trail, you can migrate the data from a smaller disk to a larger one with Carbon Copy Cloner using the "block copy" method. It works a treat, and allows to you to keep a nice long backup history instead of older backups being removed due to lack of space. The process takes a good while as in my case I was cloning over 400Gb to the new drive.

Can I use Carbon Copy Cloner to clone my Time Machine backup?

For important, albeit technical reasons, Carbon Copy Cloner will avoid backing up a Time Machine backup set in a file-level copy. It is possible, however, to clone a Time Machine volume with CCC using a block-level copy:

1. Enable the "Block copy" button in CCC's preferences: choose "Preferences..." from the Carbon Copy Cloner menu and check the box to "Indicate when a block-level clone is possible"
2. Choose your source and destination volumes in CCC's main window
3. Click the "Block copy" button to require a block-level copy
4. Click the Clone button

Carbon Copy Cloner has saved the day for me in many situations and is very well worth the $25.

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