Preferences Settings

Source Disk options

Repair permissions before cloning
Runs the repair privileges utility (available in Disk Utility) to repair privileges problems prior to cloning.

Target Disk Options

Delete directories before overwriting
Before copying a directory from the source to the target, remove that item, if it exists, from the target. This provides a clean copy of the item on the target. Items at the root level of the target that are not at the root level of the source will not be deleted. If this option is not selected, the contents of the target directory (again, if it exists) will be merged with those of the source directory. However, items from the source will overwrite items with the same name and path on the target. This option becomes unavailable when the synchronization option is selected.

Make bootable
Create the necessary Darwin links (/etc, /tmp, /var) and empty directories (/Network, /Volumes, /dev) as well as bless the System and System Folder (if present). This option is required for a NetBoot set and is disabled for a disk image (except when the NetBoot or ASR options are enabled) because it is unnecessary and inappropriate.

Synchronization Options

Install psync
If you have not installed psync, a large button obscuring the options in this box will appear. Clicking on the button will initiate the download of the psync distribution disk image to your Desktop. You will be prompted to install it (manually or let CCC do it). If you choose to install it, CCC will mount the disk image, install the package (using the command-line installer utility) and eject the disk image, then reveal the synchronization options. If you do not choose to install, you must quit CCC, install it manually, then relaunch CCC before you can use the synchronization utility. Psync is not required for the basic functionality of CCC, only the synchronization options. Psync was not developed by the author of CCC (it was developed by Dan Kogai). The option to install it here is provided merely as a convenience. See the Read Me for more details.

Synchronize source to target
Use psync instead of ditto for any directories. Note that if you have files at the root level of your source disk, CCC will use ditto (or cp for links) instead of psync due to psync limitations.

Force-copy unmodified items
By default, psync only copies items that are newer or have been modified since the last copy. This option will copy everything, regardless of modification date.

Delete items not on source
Remove items from the target directories that are not in the source directories. This does not affect files or directories that are at the root level of the target but not on the source, it affects only items within directories on the "Items to be copied" list.

Disk Image Options

Create a disk image on the target
CCC will create a blank disk image at the root level of the target disk that has the same capacity as the source disk. The disk image volume name will be the name of the source disk. The disk image is a sparse disk image (takes up only as much space as the data that is on it) and it is stretchable to twice its original size. You can use Disk Utility to stretch the image if you need to increase its capacity at a later time.

Make it a NetBoot set
In addition to creating the disk image part of a NetBoot set, CCC will create all the auxillary files as well. You will end up with a [source-name].nbi folder at the root level of the target disk. This folder can be transferred to the /Library/NetBoot/NetBootSPX folder of a Mac OS X Server for immediate use (you should run Server Settings to set additional options on the image, such as enable/disable and set default). Note that NetBoot currently does not work with images greater than 2GB. This is a VERY cool feature of CCC and you should definitely give it a try if you have a Mac OS X Server. Note that the "make bootable" option will be selected and disabled. This is a feature as that option is required. You do not need to check any other boxes in the prefs when creating a NetBoot set.

ASR Options

Prepare for Apple Software Restore
With this option the disk image will be converted to read-only and will be scanned by Apple Software Restore to allow for fast, block-level restores. To learn more about this process, see my Apple Software Restore Instructions (English website). Also check out NetRestore (English website) for restoring ASR-ready disk images to target machines. Note that when this option is selected, the "Make bootable" option is selected and disabled. This is a feature as that option is required.

Run Setup Assistant after restore
This option will remove the "/var/db/.AppleSetupDone" file on the disk image such that the Setup Assistant will run the first time a restored computer is booted.

Prompt to remove users
This will give you the opportunity to remove NetInfo user accounts and their home directories from the target disk image. All users will be listed (including System users), but only users with UID > 500 can actually be removed.

Format
You have the option to compress or not. I recommend using the compression option because compressed images restore faster than uncompressed images and use less bandwidth.

Segment size
Segment size could be useful to people running into 2GB file limits with older versions of AFP. I recommend that you leave this field blank unless you have a specific reason to segment your image. Leaving the field blank is equivalent to “Do not segment”. If you do use this field, the value must be a number (the units are megabytes).