Installing Big Sur on SuperDuper bootable clone?

TidBITS Talk
#1

Hello all,

Late 2015 iMac which Apple says can be upgraded to Big Sur.

I’m sure someone here will have a good answer for this.

I’m running 10.14.6, and am planning to skip Catalina and eventually move to Big Sur. I have two TM backups and two SuperDuper clones on external, wired HDs.

Is it feasible, advisable and practical to boot from one of the SuperDuper clones and upgrade it to Big Sur, just to see how it works and if I like it? (I realize SD hasn’t been updated to be able to make bootable clones in Big Sur, but I believe this is imminent from info posted on the Shirtpocket side/blogs.)

Thanks for any and all ideas.

#2

As long as you’re certain you can sacrifice one of those SD clones and you’re aware performance from a spinning disk attached externally usually leaves much to be desired, IMHO there’s no harm in trying so you get an idea of the look and feel. Remember not to allow Big Sur to back up to your previous TM disk. Big Sur will change the TM disk format in such a way you cannot go back.

#3

Hej,
I updated an iMac 27" from 2017 and a MacBook Pro 13" from 2018 in a similar way without major surprises.
I made my Carbon Copy Cloner backup from Catalina actual and installed the update on the backup SSD (I have no experiences with SuperDuper). Then I played with Big Sur starting from the external SSD. When I later booted in Catalina from the internal disk, the external SSD was renamed “Update”. I changed the name to the original one without any problems.
I little problem was that I have a very large Photos-Catalogue – containing 28k Originals – on an external third SSD. While playing with Big Sur the Photos Databases were updated and I could not open Photos from Catalina.
Being not too annoyed with Big Sur I updated the internal disks without problems.
CCC told me that at the moment it could not backup the signed system volume. But having installed Big Sur before on the external SSD’s I am quite happy.
My TimeMachine Disk (HFS+) made new backups but did not go back before the time I installed Big Sur. So I reformatted the Disks to APFS and startet to a new backup. Hope it works.

#4

Yesterday, CCC released version 5.1.23 which will create a bootable backup for BIg Sur on Intel Macs. The first backup under this release asks if you want the backup to be bootable. If you say yes, the backup will take a while as it needs to recreate the system volume.

Note that you still cannot create a bootable backup for the new Apple Silicon Macs, but the backup created is fine as a source for doing data restores. See the release notes for details.

1 Like
Big Sur Is Here, but We Suggest You Say “No Sir” for Now
#5

Replied to a post from August, but am reposting here as it might be more easily found!

I have a late 2015 iMac. I believe it has USB 3 and Thunderbolt ports.

Simon, I’m guessing that the Nekteck enclosure you suggested in another topic wouldn’t be compatible for my iMac. Do you have a suggestion for an enclosure that would be compatible?

The Samsung 1TB drive is currently on sale on Amazon for $110 and I thought I might use it to create a Big Sur startup disk.

Thanks

#6

Answered here.