Bombich Software Reviews 19

I used to use Bombich's software for a very long time (greater than 10 years I think), but no more! They will change the software, remove important facilities without notice to their customers and too bad for you if you actually need that facility. This just happened to me. Now all my backups are basically useless to me.

This used to be excellent software with an easy to overlook interface and all the important information up-front. With each update (which you have to pay for) it got more clunky, buried functions and with gimmicky graphics. Before it used to make carbon copies - exactly the same backups. Now - even if you switch of their new "snap shot" feature which I do not want - the backup gets bigger and bigger with each run. Definitely not a carbon copy and therefore not trustworthy. I have no idea what kind of garbage gets dumped now on backups. Look elsewhere!

Bought CCC in error, having failed to notice the "Free trial" button next to "Buy", but a modest cost and no regrets. Purpose was to speed up 2015 iMac as per several YouTube recommendations are to connect an external SSD drive. First transfer of data failed to enable me to boot the computer, so contacted Bombich. That is where they really excelled. Prompt, polite, personal answers which solved my problem. How refreshing not to have either AI or sluggish big corporation call centre handle one's questions!

I’m a certified Apple Consultant who’s been using CCC to clone Macs and Mac servers for many years and it’s saved my bacon more than once. Their support has always been stellar in response time and accuracy including recently when I uncovered a bug in a rare edge-case scenario I was dealing with and a fix was made available to me within just 24 hours! Mike Bombich is “da bomb”. Love this guys and his software. Thanks for all you do. Well worth the cost of admission despite some paid upgrades along the way…

I ordered a fully functional trial copy of Carbon Copy Cloner to enable the cloning of a iMac hard drive to a SSD replacement. As stated in other reviews, this software enabled the successful cloning of my multi-partition MacSur OS and worked beautifully. The only issue I had was due to Microsoft's licensing which was expected and a new license was obtained to update that package. The support I received was excellent and an order was placed for a full license to enable continued use for backup purposes

I'll give CCC 5 stars - but the developer and support? 0 stars for my recent experience requesting help/advice on a copy of CCC5 that I purchased recently.
Mike jumped in after the first guy said in reference to a feature /behavior/scenario that I was asking them about
"I would expect it should work". "Expect"? Really?? "Should"??
I'm not accustomed to such vagueness from a software developer who's product concerns copying and protecting critical data. My initial question was carefully specific, so....I guess Mike didn't like my response stating that "expect it should work" did not illicit confidence in my proceeding. He wrote back and said "Why not?"
What is this, 20 questions?
Great software...very poor and snarky support. I'm on my own I guess.

Why must I buy the same thing twice? I purchased CCC5 a few years back and was happy enough as it saved my skin a few times. Then last October it started giving me trouble, unable to find past back ups. (Thankfully, I knew where they where....)
I survived until this week. I open it and it tells me my trial period has ended and I need to purchase it. 😡

I have since been in contact 5 times, giving order no, registration details, date of purchase, invoice no, etc etc and still no reply. Not a whisper. Seems like they want me to pay again for it.
This company used to be one of high repute, the interface was simple, the product reliable and its software something you could trust in an emergency. What has gone wrong?
C'mon! get your act together guys or else you could find yourselves going out of business altogether

I've purchased their software around 1 year ago and now they've upgraded to CCC 6 and I'm basically obliged to buy the new version. This because the version I've bought (CCC 5) said that if I continue to use it and do not upgrade it may put my data in risk. I consider it a scam, as after little more than 1 year I have to buy again the software to continue using it. So be careful because the real cost may not be the one you were expecting.

It used to have a wonderful simple and very effectual interface. To the person(s) in Bombich who decided to change it to this cumbersome monstrosity: never trust your aesthetics and practicality skills. What you achieved is bad at multiple levels...

Terrible - maybe if you are a nerd sort of usable- but for any normal person, freelancer, even computersavvy ones, a pain in the *ss. Save your money, there are better alternatives out there.

I wrote to Bombich support saying I don't see in the menu item when I had last backed up (quick glance without launching CCC 6 because CCC 5 had it). Got reply from Rob C saying that the menubar item is still available. I followed up explaining politely, yes, I already have the menu item but there's no info there. The Activity bar shows nothing after a day. Got reply again from Rob C saying "the Activity tab in the menubar gives that level of information, do you find what you are looking for there?"

Seems Rob C doesn't read or can't read.

So I sent him a one-liner "I've already explained in words, but maybe you need pictures." And attached screenshots showing the Activity bar completely blank.

No reply from that point on because Bombich Support by Rob C is totally bogus. He won't read when it's more than one sentence, and he gets embarrassed when the picture shows exactly what I had explained in more than one sentence.

What can you do?

Admin password on MacBook with El Capitan was hijacked. Luckilly, I had an USB (120 GB) where I istalled a back-up copy created by CCC. I rushed to install and while the installation was in the process, I got panicky that I am installing on the existing system full of apps and with that hijacked password. However CCC performed flawessly. Within maybe 10 minutes, it installed everything and allowed me to log in as admin without a hitch. Great, great time saving and headches.

I wish I could give more stars as I appreciate the difficulty in producing a backup system for macOS when Apple make it challenging with their own updates that can corrupt the process.

I have personally found that this is not a backup solution for a MacBook that you choose to back up wirelessly over a network. This is despite the advertising that it could be from Bombich on their landing page. If you choose to plug your laptop into a hard drive on a daily basis then this may work for you.

Issues I encountered are:
- The backup process intermittently failed on a regular basis over the network.
- When I actually needed it, the restore process completely failed which lead to hours of attempted data recovery. On my initial attempt the data storage process meant that it restored the system to a separate disc image that bricked the hard drive and required a complete reinstall of the Mac OS. I then had to trawl the files to restore my documents.
- When I contacted support they just stated that it was my fault for choosing the particular backup system and not plugging my laptop in to create a bootable hard drive. There wasn't much of an effort to resolve any issues. Very disappointing.

On a more positive note, my data was actually backed up, although it was a struggle to get retrieve it. I have since moved back to Time Machine.

Have been using Carbon Copy Cloner for several years without problems.
Have not yet switched to Catalina, so cannot comment on the other poster's difficulties.
In my experience, this app is the most well thought-through I have used, with a friendly, non-irritating screen interface which makes backups a cinch.
It is reasonably priced, they have been generous with upgrades, and the customer support is superb. Recently I contacted them with several questions, and received an email response _within 30 minutes_ which A) answered all my questions pleasantly and helpfully and B) referred me to links with detailed info on how to test backups to make certain they will work as necessary. This is in great contrast to the majority, where they happily tell you they have created a "ticket", and then you wait for weeks for a reply from someone who has not bothered to read (or obviously can't understand) your original question.
Highly recommended.

Sad to say I trusted this back up and when I needed it most it failed the resultant e mails to and from the company were difficult and hard to follow and finally when given the email regarding booting from USB some 5 days into the saga it stated you can not boot from an encrypted hard drive Save it to say if you are running Catalina you can not use the software without changing the back up disk format then you can not use an encrypted Mac OSX disc and the boot from the backup you have made it will not work as I found out
The Web has a lot on this and its sadly not good news and one twitter comment from the company is wait for the dust to settle not good when you need the back up you are unable to use
all in all not very good customer service and poor communication