SuperDuper, a Perfect Complement to Time Machine
With Leopard, Apple released Time Machine. It is the ultimate backup system for newbies and professionals alike. They say its a true one-click backup solution. I agree. The simplicity and beauty of the Time Machine backup is simply mindblowing. Retrieving files, emails, addresses, and the ability to completely restore a system back to a date and time rightfully makes Time Machine the star feature of Leopard.
But, and there’s always a but, Time Machine has some drawbacks. For one, you cannot boot from a Time Machine drive. In cases of system failure, a faulty OS update, or you just plain want to boot from your earlier system state, you cannot do that with Time Machine. You also have very little control, security, and mobility with Time Machine.
SuperDuper has been a favourite among many mac aficionados. I had never understood what the fuss was about and hence was real excited about Time Machine, and have used that since October 26th, 2007. Then came along the 10.5.4 update which for some reason didn’t agree with my iMac. Kernel panics abound. The only option was to reinstall the OS along with the Time Machine backup. I decided to do a clean install instead. But if I had known about SuperDuper, I would have restored my system in a heartbeat. So let’s look at what this backup tool can do for you.
At it’s core, SuperDuper makes carbon copies of your system anywhere you want it to. This is a bootable copy, which can be used as your startup disk. This copy can be used to bring back your system to the time of the backup. This backup can be mounted on your desktop so you can browse your system using the Finder to retrieve files and folders. And all this can be scheduled.
A Carbon Copy
SuperDuper sports a very simple and intuitive interface. The instructions are also shown right in the workflow so you don’t have to scurry around looking for help files. In this example, I want to backup my Macintosh HD, along with all the system and user files (excluding the temporary and cache files). I also want my backup to be as a disk image. This will prevent any clutter on my external drive as well as keep it manageable.
To do this, I select Macintosh HD in the Copy field, and “Disk Image” in the To field. If I didn’t want a disk image, I can keep my SuperDuper backups right beside the Time Machine backup using the Smart Update option.
With every change in the preferences, the instructions, in plain simple english, change to reflect what is going to happen. This gives you confidence in knowing what you are doing with your data.
After the backup is done, I can just double click the disk image and it will mount on my Desktop. If I had directly backed up to my external drive, I would be able to boot from that drive itself and the files would be available to me right on my external drive without the need for mounting a disk image.
What makes SuperDuper tick
For most part, if you just want SuperDuper as a companion to Time Machine, the free version works just fine. But if you are serious about backups, then you need to pay for SuperDuper. A reasonable $28 gets you Smart Updates, Scheduling, Sandboxing and Scripts.
(SuperDuper Scheduling options)
Smart Update means incremental backups. This means that you do not have to backup your entire drive every time. SuperDuper will automatically keep a track of the files that have changed and backup only those files. This saves a lot of time and if paired with Scheduling, it can very well replace Time Machine.
I haven’t gone through the intricacies of Sandboxing, but from what I can figure, you can effectively make a test system on your external hard drive (using up just around 15GB). The test system uses your current system user files and applications. With this, you can effectively install something as big as an OS update to see how it reacts with your test system. If everything goes fine, you can install the update on your main system.
But I have Time Machine…
SuperDuper will not make me stop using Time Machine, as the file by file retrieval system as well as archiving different versions of each file and folder is something that I value a lot (okay! Its mainly because I dig the smoking hot interface) But after having tested it, I certainly think that I will use it right alongside my Time Machine backup.
The free version, a mere 2.7MB can be downloaded at the Shirt-Pocket website. The paid features can then be activated from the application itself.
Subscribe to Smoking Apples
Having used both for quite some time, I can’t help but disagree with the premiss of the article. Unless you are looking to do more than your standard incremental backup, or need to back up a second harddrive, there’s no reason to be running both. I use Time Machine for my OS drive and SuperDuper for the Multimedia drive.
While you are correct that one cannot boot directly from a Time Machine image, you CAN boot from the install DVD then restore from the Time Machine backup. One small extra step is hardly something you can call a fault.
Chad October 13th, 2008 at 6:08 am
@CHAD
that was good info.
Dinesh October 13th, 2008 at 12:14 pm
Like I said, while it is possible to restore to a Time Machine backup, the process is really long. Plus you need to have your Leopard DVD at hand. I’ve been using SuperDuper for a month now, and whenever I feel “this is the system I want to go back to”, I backup using SuperDuper. I can, and do, keep that backup on another backup drive as well as the Time Machine one just in case.
Of course the more advanced uses like sandboxing and such would also be of use to me, but not for the average Time Machine user.
However, as a long time user of both, I respect your views. Maybe I might find myself thinking the same in a couple of months.
Milind Alvares October 13th, 2008 at 12:35 pm
I haven’t used SuperDuper yet and might give it a go soon. I get real scared with Time Machine and whether or not it will restore my OS back. I’ve heard of some issues but maybe those were only in early versions of Leopard. I agree with Chad though in that SuperDuper is not intended for basic users.
Dean October 13th, 2008 at 1:02 pm
I disagree with Chad. I have used SuperDuper! since forever, and was also delighted when Time Machine came along, and use it all the time with my rather expensive Time Capsule. I still clone my drive each week at least though.
1. SD beats TM for drive space. You know that SD will NEVER take up more space than your actual hard drive. TM eats as much space as you can give it.
2. SD beats TM for being an exact bootable backup. You can almost not miss a beat - plug in backup drive, boot from the clone and you’re working again.
3. SD beats TM for portability. Use a sparse image and make MULTIPLE copies of your backup and spread them around. I keep one on my backup drive at home and occasionally make a duplicate to keep in the office.
4. SD beats TM for compatibility. It’s an absolutely standard disk image, still compatible with Panther, Tiger and not just Leopard. Yes there are some people out there who haven’t upgraded.
5. SD beats TM for speed. An incremental backup takes no time over FW or USB. TM takes forever and chews up your wifi throughput like the devil.
6. TM wins HANDS DOWN for casual, granular, automatic, wireless, everyday backups that are so simple my 7-year old daughter gets it.
I wish you could use Time Machine individually with more apps though.
I will keep using both.
John October 13th, 2008 at 1:06 pm
@Dean I have already had to redo one machine’s Time Machine backup - which takes FOREVER even over a hard Ethernet connection. It’s not perfect yet. If I had needed my backup then, and had nothing else, I would have been stuffed.
Check the Apple Discussions. It’s full of people very unsure if they can rely on TM backups alone. For me it’s worked perfectly (with exception of one glitch above) when I have needed to grab a backup of a single file.
John October 13th, 2008 at 1:13 pm
I’m perfectly happy with Time Machine. Even on my powerbook it works just fine on my FW400 drive. I still haven’t had the opportunity to restore my drive (because OS X is so awesome!). I would have liked to have the option of excluding Movies and Music from Superduper. Is that possible? With Time Machine I have excluded a lot of folders like downloads, movies and music as I don’t need them (especially incremental, no!). Still, Superduper looks like an slick application, especially the free version should be good enough for most users. Will try it out
mmm October 13th, 2008 at 1:36 pm
Wow!! what a timing for this article!! My, 1 year non-backed up MacBook hard drive crashed yesterday and I’ve lost everything that matters to me most just like that… I mean everything gone, gone like fart!!
After reading this article I am quite confused as to what I should be choosing.
I am a power user and my need is incremental back up for my bookmarks, mail boxes, photos, work files, small text files where I write great info all the time, settings and prefs of my apps. I do manual back up of my movies and music. Please suggest me a good strategy coz I haven’t used either TM or SD.
TM is not bootable but its image can be used to restore from Leo DVD but its slow. !??!
SD is bootable and is fast but doesn’t have the option to exclude movies and music. !??!
Any suggestions ??
Azeem October 13th, 2008 at 2:09 pm
It was merely coincidental. I had scheduled the post and then saw your comment about the drive crash.
1. Use Time Machine as your one stop regular backup solution. Use SuperDuper if you want something in addition to Time Machine. You can never backup enough.
2. Use MobileMe for documents, bookmarks, Photos, mailboxes, settings and all that. (since you already have a MobileMe account). A guide to doing that is coming up soon.
Milind Alvares October 13th, 2008 at 2:14 pm
You can exclude folders/files from a Super Duper! backup by modifying the scripts - but it is really designed for full drive backup…
I would say TM is a good backup strategy for you, but if you do a full Super Duper! clone once a month, say, this is extra security - for doing a full clone SD is free, it should be noted. You only have to pay for advanced features like Smart Update and scheduling.
Have you tried FireWire target mode on your dead MacBook (if you have another Mac handy!)? You might be able to mount the disk for long enough to copy your precious data on to another Mac.
John October 13th, 2008 at 2:19 pm
What about the stuff in iTunes ?? How to back that up ?? I had lot of songs purchased from iTunes, over a dozen music videos purchased and lots of podcasts!! How do I back them up and what happens to the stuff that I purchased from iTunes ??
Azeem October 13th, 2008 at 2:19 pm
@Azeem: Time Machine takes care of EVERYTHING. Unless you exclude folders in the TM preferences, it will back everything up. (I’d highly recommend excluding the movies folder).
As for SuperDuper, do as John says. A monthly full backup would do you good.
Milind Alvares October 13th, 2008 at 2:22 pm
@John
I don’t have a second Mac. Now the problem with my drive is that when I tried to reinstall Leopard on my MacBook, the installer didn’t find the target drive for installation. I used Disk Utility and even it didn’t find my drive.
Azeem October 13th, 2008 at 2:24 pm
All your iTunes content will be backed up by both TM and SD. iTunes will also burn a full backup from inside the app by going File > Library > Back Up to Disc… which is very cool - you can use DVDs or CDs and it will span multiple discs, keep feeding it until it’s done. You can also do incremental backup like this…or only purchased content. I am surprised more people don’t use it.
Link to tutorial here: http://bit.ly/3JtNUR
John October 13th, 2008 at 2:26 pm
@Azeem if you want to have ANY chance of recovering your data do NOT try to write anything to the drive or reinstall Leopard. The only way to try and recover the data is finding a friend with a Mac and trying target mode.
It sounds like your hard drive has physically failed or become corrupted.
Boot the machine off the Leopard DVD and run Disk Utility. If it can see your drive/volume you might have a chance at repairing it. If not then it might be gone for good.
John October 13th, 2008 at 2:32 pm
Thanks for the nice review, Milind!
@Chad: The thing isn’t that Time Machine can’t restore a whole system: assuming everything is properly backed up, etc, it can.
The issue is more that you:
- Can’t test your backup until you need it
- Can’t restore without having something to restore to, so if your drive dies you’re out of commission until you get it replaced
- Need to take a lot more time to restore due to the nature of the backup
TM is great as I’ve indicated in my own posts on the Shirt Pocket blog, but SuperDuper! complements it extremely well — and as has been said elsewhere, you can never have too many backups.
@Azeem: there’s a whole section in the User’s Guide that explains how to exclude data from a backup, if you want to do that. However — remember that disk space is inexpensive, and your data is worth a *lot*. I always recommend that people back up everything… it’s always the stuff you skip that you lose.
@everyone: remember that the unregistered version of SuperDuper! will make full, bootable copies of your data. As long as you don’t mind having to copy everything in full, every time, you can use SuperDuper! that way.
Of course, I’d prefer it if you registered, since that’s how I eat, but if you don’t have a bootable backup and the modest fee is holding you back — you can do it for free! No excuses: supplement your TM backup with a bootable backup. You’ll be glad you did.
Dave Nanian October 13th, 2008 at 5:48 pm
I have had to use my SuperDuper! backup exactly twice in anger, once after a self-inflicted iTunes library problem (on Tiger so no Time Machine then) and once to clone my drive to a new PowerBook without fiddling around with Migration Assistant. Both times very glad to have it. It gives me total confidence I have a bit-perfect clone of my drive.
And since the developer has stopped by, it should be noted that Mr Nanian has an excellent reputation for supporting his product!
John October 13th, 2008 at 7:22 pm
I thought SuperDuper had lost its point after Time Machine but apparently I’ve been wrong. I’ve been taking backups on every possible medium, be it HD, DVD and even online. SuperDuper could well fit into my hall of backups!
Felix October 13th, 2008 at 7:35 pm
I need a hall for my backups too. I have DVD backups of all my iPhoto photos, my whole iTunes library, and my entire user folder. I have network backups of my Documents folder. I have de facto backups of Address Book, iCal, bookmarks and Mail content on MobileMe. I use Apple’s Backup for the same plus my keychains. Then I have SuperDuper! clones once a week and Time Machine doing its thing every day.
One day I’m going to build an underground bunker for it all I swear.
But other than the one time above when I screwed up iTunes myself, I have never had to use ANY of my backups in many years of using Mac OS X and Apple hardware. Which is nice.
John October 13th, 2008 at 7:44 pm
I personally use both SuperDuper & Time Machine - they complement each other.
The problem with either, is that each of them make it possible to back up corrupted files, but used together, that issue can largely be fixed.
1-Avoid scheduling blind backups with SuperDuper. Imagine your main drive starts corrupting data - you don’t want SuperDuper to copy that corruption over top of your last good backup. Only run SD when you are reasonably sure your main HD is in good shape.
2-Ideally, keep a rotated archive copy of your SD backup on another drive
3-Time Machine can copy damaged files as well, but combined with 1&2 above, you can really minimise the chances of not being able to recover your data.
John October 14th, 2008 at 1:37 am
Last post by a different John, btw!
But I agree fully, I have a good tidy-up and run a whole slew of maintenance scripts (either with Cocktail or AppleJack) before a Super Duper! backup. I can’t guarantee nothing has been corrupted but at least one of my backups should yield a good copy of whichever file.
I replaced Mail.app’s plist file from a backup not so long ago after it got hopelessly corrupted. Another good example of the utility of both SD and TM - very easy to replace just one file to fix a problem.
John October 14th, 2008 at 1:47 am
“Last post by a different John, btw!”
LOL! A third john here.
And yeah, I’ve been a big fan of SuperDuper! since Tiger. Using it alongside of Time Machine since Leopard.
John.B October 14th, 2008 at 1:56 am
Good review. Even I used to wonder what the fuss was about with SuperDuper. TUAW seems to be in love with it. I guess I’ll go with the free version for now, although $28 for a good backup solution isn’t too much.
And what’s with the name John painted everywhere?
schneider October 14th, 2008 at 2:38 am
It’s the best name in the world, obviously.
John October 14th, 2008 at 2:50 am
How come I haven’t heard about this app? I bought my Macbook in January along with a LaCie 500GB hard drive. Been using it with Time Machine with oodles of space remaining. Seems like I could make some room for additional backups.
Niahal October 14th, 2008 at 3:47 am
SuperDuper is good but it’s design means it can fail if your drives are nearly full. It has happened a lot to me and the author nows about it but has decided at the moment it’s acceptable (all software has design limitations). Basically if you add new files and delete others the backup can fail if it adds the new files, filling the backup drive, before it deletes the old files. So in essence the “Smart” feature, while very useful, is not smart at all. It would be smart if it did a quick pre-scan determining the best order to add and delete files (and it may be faster in the long run if it determines optimal locations for the files).
For example, imagine a drive that has a 300MB free. Since the last backup you have added 600MB but deleted 800MB. The backup will fail if it copies more than 300MB before it deletes any of the 800MB. So even though the backup drive should end up with even more free space than it started with, the backup may fail. In most cases the only fix is to manually go in and remove large files. Not very ‘Smart’
Still, it is a very nice program.
SE October 14th, 2008 at 3:47 am
@SE - well, actually, it’s more complicated than that.
Here’s the deal: yes, as explained in the User’s Guide, in rare cases you can run out of space even when the ‘end result’ would normally fit on the drive.
There’s really no such thing as a “quick” pre-scan. A scan is a scan is a scan, and reading every file on the drive, and pre-evaluating what would need to be deleted, in what order, and then determining the ‘best order’ would actually be significantly slower, in the long run, than doing what we do now in one pass.
That isn’t to say things can’t be improved - no doubt they can. We’re well aware of this case, and we have quite a few ideas in this general area. But, everything seems “easy/quick” when you’re looking at things from the outside (and every problem seems major when it’s happening to you… :-)).
Dave Nanian October 14th, 2008 at 3:58 am
Thanks for the comments guys! And thank you Dave for stopping by and clearing things up. And the biggest thank you to all the Johns (I’ve lost count) for sharing wisdom.
Milind Alvares October 14th, 2008 at 4:40 am
I use SuperDuper in my arsenal of preventive maintenence utilities, and I’m very happy with the pay version. Since TM came out I have only used SD about once every 3 months. Even at 4 uses a year, $28 is nothing.
If you consider yourself a power user, then you should be backup up whenever there’s been a significant change about to happen to your system.
I once relied on another app that will remain nameless to backup, and it failed me. I didn’t know until the time came to use it (drive failure) that it lost all my data. The good news is that I had a SD backup about 3 months old and I only lost one website, and updates to another I had made. 3 months is a lot of time to loose, so I know I should probably do a SD backup more regularly, but I rotate drives (as someone mentioned above), and 2 is enough.
Anyway, SuperDuper is a great product an should be in every power users toolbox. (Oh, and encourage Dave to make improvements to it by buying a copy. $28 is like one 2 person lunch at a decent place.)
Noivad October 14th, 2008 at 5:48 am
Time Machine is all you need. I feel sorry for the good guys who made SD, but TM makes SD unnecessary.
Let me give you my reason.
1) You need to purchase a second backup drive which you could use for other things if you didn’t need to for SD (You will understand why I make this point later).
2) A big win people mention for SD is that you can boot off the drive and be right back up and running. Well that is true if you backed up just before you had the failure. You need to choose when and how often to run SD (monthly sounds popular). So is being back to where you were a month ago really being right back up? TM brings you back to with in an hour of your failure.
3) People argue that you can’t test your back up. Or could you? Ok so assuming that you have a second backup drive that you were going to use with SuperDuper, you could boot from your System DVD and restore your TM backup to test it. And this is a real test of all the data not just a test of the system files. Better yet! You now have a bootable backup drive that can be as up to date as you choose to make it removing what ever benefit is left of item 2.
4) Corrupted files. Assuming that your first TM backup was good, you can restore to any point in the past with TS so you can avoid corrupted files with your restore. If you backup often with SD and you have corrupt files you could easily backup bad data over top of your good data.
5) TS is slow over wifi. So do it over FireWire! SD would be just as slow over WiFi.
I’m not saying that multiple backups are not useful but most people don’t do 1 let alone 2. And for my money it would be better to use the two drives you though to use for TS and SD in a good mirrored RAID case to satisfy your need for multiple backups. Or better yet, run your system from that mirrored RAID and use TM as your protection?
Just my $.02 worth.
Doug Petrosky October 14th, 2008 at 5:50 am
@Doug: Your first point itself makes your whole argument moot. You do not need a separate drive for SuperDuper. Both the backups can reside on the same drive and function just fine.
Second, you can schedule your backups, and with the incremental backups, it becomes the same as TM. I wouldn’t advise hourly backups though. Remember. I said SD goes well along with Time Machine. I wouldn’t stop using Time Machine just because I use SD.
Third, if you didn’t get a second drive for SuperDuper then where is the question of having the second drive anyway? Sort of a weird point you mentioned there. Besides, sandboxing new OSes and updates is impossible with TM.
And four, you have both the TM backup and the SD backup to choose the correct data from. So if one is corrupted, hope that the other one is fine.
I agree that TM is not slow in any particular way. I’m using it over FIrewire and it has performed really well.
Thank you for your two cents though. Much appreciated.
Milind Alvares October 14th, 2008 at 1:38 pm
@Doug almost everybody is saying that TM and SD complement each other, as slightly different backup models lend themselves to different purposes.
eg:
1. Accidentally deleted a document? Of course TM is better as it is so granular, you can launch TM and have the document back in seconds.
2. Total system failure and need to get up and running as soon as possible? SD much quicker, you can boot directly from the backup drive.
Of course your point about how often people back up with SD is relevant. I do weekly, usually. Thus I am never TOO far behind on a total system clone and TM will fill in the gaps.
These two methods are in no way mutually exclusive.
Have you ever tried a full restore from TM? I haven’t, but according to all reports regardless of what connection you are using it is sloowwww. I don’t have time to spend hours testing my backup this way.
Plus, Apple sold me a Time Capsule so I don’t have to use FireWire. So slow performance over wifi is an issue that I am slightly disappointed with. The incremental backups are not so bad but they need some way to throttle the bandwidth so I can keep using my AirPort connection properly.
A RAID config would be great for data redundancy, but you are moving into an area beyond the competence of casual users, and doubling the expense on backup drives and even more on a good RAID enclosure. Plus, if you are a notebook user (like me) are you going to lug your RAID setup around? I don’t think so. My SD backup resides on a tiny portable drive that fits in my bag for extended trips away.
John October 14th, 2008 at 3:28 pm
Replying to Doug in brief, I think SuperDuper and time Machine are complementary.
You don’t need to buy another drive (although this would be ideal), you can partition your drive using Disk Utility.
Mine has a SD, TM and a scratch partition. I backup nightly with SD (except Sundays when I run a bunch of utilities) which takes 10 minutes for a smart backup. Having a bootable backup has been critical on one occasion when a disc got stuck in the DVD drive which would mean that the TM backup was impossible.
So replying point for point:
1) Partition your drive (actually SD allows you to run a TM/SD backup on the same drive making this irrelevant);
2) Restoring from TM backup may take a lot longer than 1hr - what if you need something urgently? SD means you’ve got a running system in less than 5 mins;
3) Slightly odd argument - very strange and time consuming way to make a bootable backup, and the test may take up to 5hrs on an external drive and the bootable backup will go out of date quite quickly;
4) True, that’s why you run both in parallel TM can take care of individual file corruption;
5) True but I think people are referring to the Time Capsule backups.
RAID’s really only useful for 24-7 availability, servers in essence. It’s not a backup solution and it’s usually impractical (expensive) in a home situation.
SuperDuper support is excellent and the price is minimal.
TM will mean people who never backed up do something, which is better than nothing but we’re talking about what’s optimal. $28 is nothing compared to the cost of losing your data.
Alistair October 14th, 2008 at 3:56 pm
Both TM and SD have saved my arse in the past and I will continue using them. The most important thing to know is that one backup is never enough.
tanner October 14th, 2008 at 4:15 pm
Maybe I’m missing something but I don’t believe that you can both use SD and time machine to get back to square one. If you SD restore your TM backup is totally out of sync and useless. So my choices are, be back up to where I was the last time I did an SD backup. (days, weeks, ???? of lost data). And at the same time loose my TM backup that could go back for Months. Or, spend 3-5 hours restoring from a TM backup, and be back to with in minutes (less than an hour) of where I was.
It sounds like you are willing to spend a dollar to save a dime! Not to mention all of the time spent doing your SD backups. I have no idea the impact, but it must be something.
As for how strange a restore to a second drive (or a second partition to a drive, I can play that game too). It is a TRUE test of your backup and gives you the same ability to be back up and running with old data the SD does. Now it might be slower (I don’t know because I don’t know how long a full SD backup takes).
The bringing up of RAID was just to make the point that more backups are always better than fewer but a single backup that is kept up to date is sufficient for most people and you can go crazy making systems better than that.
As for Apple selling you the Time Capsule, it might be true but it also has a GB ethernet port on it that would be far faster than your wifi. Also, this is an OPTION! apple offers you that trades connivence for speed. Apple also gave you the ability to use TM over firewire external drives, so compare apples to apples when you make your point or it looks like you are hiding something or at least showing a bias.
Doug Petrosky October 14th, 2008 at 11:22 pm
You’re missing something, Doug: you can certainly restore files from a Time Machine backup over a SuperDuper! restore, no problem.
Note that I would never suggest that you only do a backup with SD! “monthly”. Certainly, you could have a monthly, weekly *and* daily, but that’s three separate backups. There’s no need to have your only SD! backup be a month out of date. Sure, it could be — and you could not connect to your Time Machine backup drive for a month, too. But, why?
Dave Nanian October 15th, 2008 at 12:19 am
@Dave Nanian: You the developer right? It appears that you haven’t heard of a little something that has developed on the WWW, called ‘the internet troll’. Very much like the ones in Lord of the Rings or Harry Potter, but a little more annoying that them. Feed the troll and he will only bite you again.
SD is a great software btw.
Striker October 15th, 2008 at 12:28 am
@Doug I think this is turning into one of those things where it’s just better to agree to disagree!
The whole point of the Time Capsule is wireless backup for multiple machines. Nuff said.
@folks who backup to a partition - if your hard drive fails physically this will leave you screwed. Highly recommended to backup to a totally separate drive, whatever software you use.
PS Who REALLY wants a new MacBook Pro?
John October 15th, 2008 at 12:33 am
@Striker: I actually don’t think Doug’s a troll. I just don’t agree with his position, and I’ve used — and use, and test extensively — both TM and SD. As you might expect.
Thanks for the kind words about SD!
@John(n? n-1? n+1?): absolutely, totally right. Never, ever, ever back up on the same drive you’re backing up from, partition or not. Terrible thing to do.
Dave Nanian October 15th, 2008 at 12:39 am
I’m no troll, I’m just not getting the need for SD anymore, but that could be because of ignorance of how SD can work with TM. Or to be more specific how flexible TM is with dealing with restored drives. So let me clear this up for my self and others. What you are saying is that if every monday you do a SD backup and also have TM doing incremental backups hourly. Thursday your drive dies and you can put your SD backup in place and ask TM to bring it back to where it was at the last hourly backup?
This would make SD much more interesting because just as some people have tried to state the importance of how quickly you can recover, I’d state that a partial recovery is similarly limited.
Doug Petrosky October 15th, 2008 at 1:08 am
Don’t hesitate to try this product. I’ve used it for nearly two years and the no-brainer simplicity, clear instructions and feedback and speed (I use FW 800) makes for confidence in having a perfect clone should the worst happen. What price peace of mind? Really, if you are not doing even the most basic back up as in the free mode you are risking everything. And Mr Nanian is personally very helpful and accomodating. More software developers should heed his example.
Tim de Lange October 15th, 2008 at 2:36 am
@Doug: Indeed you are not a troll. I guess it is a difference in needs. Some people need to have different forms of backups and obviously you are content with Time Machine. Nothing wrong with that. But as I have listed, and so have many other people and Johns, that there are some things Time Machine cannot do. And that is why SuperDuper perfectly ‘complements’ (and not replaces) Time Machine.
Milind Alvares October 15th, 2008 at 3:03 am
@JOHN
If the “The whole point of the Time Capsule is wireless backup for multiple machines” why did they put 4 Gigabit Ethernet ports on it?
I don’t mean to piss anyone off, I was just stating an opinion because I disagreed with this type of logic, and people are going to make buying choices based on this stuff. So, I wanted to get down to facts. I appreciate that Milind does not think I’m a troll but he still makes the statement that. ” there are some things Time Machine cannot do”
So if he is saying that you can’t boot immediately from the back up, then yes, I guess that is one thing but it is the only thing that relates to backup and recovery (at least that I picked up from this discussion). The idea that 2 backups are better than one is true but if the first backup will protect you from that 1:1000 problem the second backup is really there for that 1:1000000 problem but costs you just as much. And time machine is a much better tool for the every now and again problem of accidental deleting or over writing or whatever.
Now if someone confirms what I asked above, which is that you can use SD to be up and running immediately and very quickly use TM to recover that older backup to be as new as your most current TM backup, then this might be helpful for those who can’t wait 3-4 hours to recover from the 1:1000 failure.
Bottom line is that it is a cost reward issue that nobody has put solid numbers on and maybe I’ll take the time to figure out how long a full TM restore takes on my macbook pro. Then do a test to see how long a SD restore takes with a TM update. With numbers like that people can make real informed decisions. I’d bet that the developer knows some of these numbers.
Doug Petrosky October 15th, 2008 at 10:50 pm
I’m quite enjoying the debate(!) But I’s like to clarify one point, I meant external drives when I mentioned partitioning.
Anyway one of the main reasons for using SD is drive failure - if you’ve got a failed internal drive and an external Time Machine backup you’re still hosed until you can repair the internal drive. Drive failure is rather common - estimated at 5% per annum (taking the manufacturer’s figures with a pinch of salt). So it’s really worth protecting against.
SD allows you to work off the external drive just as if it was your old drive - it’s pretty miraculous when you first try it!
Another point to note is that everyone who’s actually bought SD seems happy with it, in this set of posts anyway. Note you can use Carbon Cloner which is free, if cost is really a big problem. SD is worth it for the excellent documentation and the support and ease of use.
Alistair October 18th, 2008 at 2:57 am
Well, if you have a second drive for SD (or even a second partition on a drive). You can restore a TM backup and have less than an hour of lost time. That is sort of my whole point. All the arguments for SD are really just arguments for a second extra drive. I’m just pointing out that additional cost and how you could make TM more robust if you planed to purchase that second drive anyway.
I will ask again, can you really take a SD backup and restore your current TM backup over top of it? Can you really be back to your last TM backup quicker via SD? It seems that TM would be confused and perform a full recovery in which case what have you saved?
Would you be just as well off having bootable drive with a clean version of OS X on it? People some times get comfortable with something and will continue to use it even after it is no longer necessary. They may even be happy about it because it is comfortable. That does not make it good or necessary. I’m not saying SD is useless (well as long as there is a way to get back to your TM backup when using it) just that it is not necessary for most people now that TM is here.
Doug Petrosky October 19th, 2008 at 2:07 pm
@Doug: A couple of scenarios for you.
1. I do a lot of testing of new apps, reviews of software, and fiddling around. It comes with the job. And when I do, I’d rather use my SD backup than use my main system which I use for my design work. Would I trust Time Machine to take me back in time if something goes wrong? Why bother!
2. A system update: I am always skeptical about Apple’s updates. Will it take my system down? Will I suffer Kernel panics? So right before installing a system update, I’d make a SD backup and make a worry free transition.
3. My disk crashed. I have a complete system backup from 7 days back, and my files are backed up via Time Machine. So I boot from the SD backup, and access those newer files from Time Machine.
Time Machine is awesome, but SuperDuper acts as an excellent supplemental backup system.
Last but not the least, thank you for your comments. They did give us something to think about.
Milind Alvares October 23rd, 2008 at 12:41 pm
Not having had time to time out how long a SD backup takes or how long a TM restore takes, I don’t know if what I’m about to suggest is reasonable or not, because it is what was more or less laughed at earlier.
Assuming that you had a second drive and that you had TM restored to it t one time. How much faster is it to SD backup that to that drive than it is to TM restore to that drive? If it is similar in speed (or faster), it would seem like it would give you all of the same benefits.
1) boot from your TM restored disk to do your work. If something goes bad you could try to roll back or you might have to wipe and restore (similar to an SD backup).
2) I’d suggest you turn off TM just before starting the update and you have the same backup waiting there for you. If you do a restore to a second drive first you not only have a backup but a tested one!
3) If you are doing regular restores to that second drive (to verify the backups) wouldn’t you be able to do exactly the same thing?
Granted! I’m playing devils advocate here because I’m trying to fit TM into the exact shoes of SD, but more than that I’m trying to point out that the biggest benefit of SD is that you have a second drive and a second backup. Both of which don’t require SD even if SD is probably the best tool for it. I’d never thought of doing regular restores of my TM backups before the conversation but it would give me a piece of mind about the quality and security of those backups that I couldn’t get any other way.
Just my thoughts
Doug Petrosky October 23rd, 2008 at 10:04 pm
Hah! I used Apple Backup today to restore some missing bookmarks. Take that SD and TM…
The reason I used Backup? I’m in the office, my Time Capsule is at home, and Super Duper! is on my big fat Lacie drive at home too. I’ve just bought a 320Gb Western Digital so I can carry a SD clone with me in my bag.
Now, someone give me Wide-Area Bonjour Time Machine access and that WOULD be cool.
@Doug I’m about to do (for someone else) both a SuperDuper! full backup and a Time Machine full backup to the same USB-connected drive, so it will be apples to apples and I will let you know how long both take respectively.
John October 23rd, 2008 at 11:16 pm
That will be awesome information to have. I think I’m going to do a TM restore to an external volume to test how long that take. I will also pull down the free version of SD to do a basic SD backup for comparison.
Doug Petrosky October 28th, 2008 at 12:11 am
That would indeed be awesome. With your permission I could also add it to the post itself.
Milind Alvares October 28th, 2008 at 12:18 am
Hey guys, hoping to have the machine back this week (it’s a work MacBook Pro that’s gone in for a replacement keyboard and will be set up fresh on return). As soon as I have it I will run both backups and post back.
Cheers, John
John October 28th, 2008 at 12:55 am
Does anyone have any data now?
Then we can argue about that and whether it was gathered correctly
Alistair November 10th, 2008 at 5:26 pm
That’s the problem with multiple Johns commenting on a single post. You don’t know which one to catch for the statistics that were promised!
Milind Alvares November 10th, 2008 at 5:32 pm