[X4U] SuperDupper question

[David Brostoff]

At 6:34 PM -0400 on 3/25/09, Neil Laubenthal wrote:
>I agree that the support is outstanding . . .but it's actually a 
>cloning program and not a backup program.

Of course SuperDuper is a backup program.

Hard-drive clones, like any duplicates, are a type of backup, and an 
excellent one at that. Most importantly, they require no intervening 
software to "restore." Whether you lose a single file or your entire 
drive fails, you still have an immediately accessible backup.

Software that creates and retains duplicates of each new version of a 
file, such as Retrospect, are also backup programs. (The makers of 
Retrospect would like people to believe that programs that create 
clones are not "true" backup programs, but this is only marketing 
speak.)

The advantage is that you can retrieve any previous version of a 
file, sometimes going very far back in time. The disadvantage is that 
the files are not in Finder format and need a software program to 
restore them. Restoring generally works without problems, but if 
there is any glitch in the program either creating the backup or 
restoring it, data can be lost. (Steve Wozniak once complained about 
such a loss and said he would never rely on such a program again.)

A really robust backup program includes both clones and versioned backups.

David