[X4U] SuperDupper question

[Randy B. Singer]

On Mar 24, 2009, at 5:07 PM, Ed Gould wrote:

> Can someone suggest a good solid (and has support) backup program?  
> I had one when I first went to the MAC that was really complicated  
> and I spent $50-75 (or more its been over 5 years) on it and never  
> really used it so I am a bit distrustful of backup programs,  
> especially when they are overly complicated to either run or set up.

I maintain a fairly large list of backup programs, and I can post  
them if you like.  Just let me know if you would like to see the list.

The thing is, nothing is as simple to use as SuperDuper!, nor as  
effective.  CCC comes in a close second.  Other backup programs can  
be a good deal more difficult to figure out how to use, and they may  
not do as good a job.  See:

http://blog.plasticsfuture.org/2006/04/23/mac-backup-software-harmful/

Actually, there *is* a more simple backup program, and it's built  
right in to OS X.

The Restore tab in Apple's Disk Utility works almost exactly like  
Carbon Copy Cloner.  It makes an exact
bootable clone of your disk.  The only options are to erase, or to leave
alone the data on the destination disk, and to do a checksum integrity
test of the data being copied.

Unfortunately, this feature does not offer syncronization of files,  
to do an incremental update
of your clone.  So the next time that you want to backup you will  
once again have to be a full backup.

The way you use Disk Utility to create a clone of your drive is to boot
from the OS X installer CD/DVD, launch Disk Utility, select the  
volume you wish to copy, click on
the restore tab, drag the source from the left-hand panel into the  
source
block, drag the target volume into the destination block, and click on
the restore button. Disk Utility will copy the source onto the
destination.

Unfortunately, this takes 2-3 times longer than using CCC
or SuperDuper!.

___________________________________________
Randy B. Singer
Co-author of The Macintosh Bible (4th, 5th, and 6th editions)

Macintosh OS X Routine Maintenance
http://www.macattorney.com/ts.html
___________________________________________