@joeo10 Rarely good or really good?
// @matigo
@variablepulserate The Micro B is actually a combination of the standard micro USB & an additional, smaller connector to enable the USB 3·0 speeds. If necessary, a plain micro USB cable will fit the larger of the two holes in the micro B port, although connection speed will be that of USB 2·0.
Just ordered a 4-pack of USB-C to Micro B sync cables https://www.amazon.com.au/gp/product/B07BW62QD6/ref=ohauidetailpageo00s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1 for my Mac’s backup drives: I have three external drives with a Micro B (micro USB 3) interface used with the MacBook Pro & one for the iMac 4k.
I’ve been using the standard USB 3 cables with cheap USB-C to USB-A adaptors but they’re tiny & too easy to lose.
Since today’s force multiple rebuild of the MacBook Pro, I have made two separate Time Machine backups, plus two bootable clones, one with SuperDuper! app, the other with Carbon Copy Cloner.
@matigo There was still a SuperDuper! app backup available, not needed. It turns out the backup clone that I restored from using Carbon Copy Cloner had actually been cloned using SuperDuper! app.
I reckon shirt-pocket.com could do us all a big favout by dropping the exclamation point from the end of therir app’s name.
@variablepulserate Snapshots came along with High Sierra and are taken every hour by time Machine, they are generally no more than 2 GB maximum. Prior to APFS, only laptops saved local backups (as they were previously known) but all Macs using APFS create snapshots. Snapshots are also saved very quickly.
More info here: https://www.lifewire.com/roll-back-apfs-snapshots-4154969
The Mac had been super-sluggish, my G3 Pismo PowerBook from 2000 was faster! It wasn’t connecting to the internet, no matter which process I tried.
With Carbon Copy Cloner being so quick & successful, I resolved to make those backups more frequent.
Update: three hours after the restoration attempt: success. Mac restored & working fine. Time Machine failed me for the first time since 2007. Restorations from both a system snapshot & a 4-day-old Time Machine backup failed to have any beneficial effect.
But I make clones, too, using both Carbon Copy Cloner & SuperDuper! apps. I chose to use CCC for the restoration, its clone was on an external SSD.
Booted from that, made sure all apps were updated & restored it. Took under 15 minutes, transferred 6.6 GB data.
Mac is fine now.
Frustrating. Closed the MacBook Pro’s lid last night with a YouTube video running. Today the bloody thing was too sluggish to work effectively. Worked fine when booted from an external SSD. Tried restoring from an earlier system snapshot, no improvement. Now restoring from a four day-old Time Machine backup.