Hi DanTime Machine and Super Duper are equally accessible, but they're two different solutions to the backup problem. What super duper does is make a clone backup of your disk, bit by bit, onto another disk or a disk image. If cloned to another disk, that disk is bootable in the event your main system goes down--i.e. you can boot off of it and get your OS X system as it was at the point when you last cloned it. Time Machine is an incremental backup solution, one designed to be able to restore your machine in the event of a failure, but also to be able to pull backups as they existed at a certain time or date. It is an archival backup solution, in that it stores numerous backups that you can open and retrieve files from at any time. However, time machine backups are not bootable, you must first boot off your OS X cd to perform a restoration of a time machine backup. Super Duper doesn't do this, when you clone your drive with it you get a copy of your disk as it was at the point you cloned it. If you clone your system again to the same disk at a later point, the old clone is overridden. Which is the best depends on what you want from a backup. Of course, you could always be safe and do both of them--a time machine for normal use and keep your clone up to date every so often in case the hd in your mac goes down and you need a bootable system right away. If you're happy with time machine, though, I see no reason not to stick with it.
On Jan 9, 2009, at 13:15, Dan Eickmeier wrote:
I'm currently using time machine for backups to a time capsule, is Superduper in any way more accessible as far as restoring your backups? Or would it be beneficial to use both to back up to the same drive?On Jan 9, 2009, at 11:12 AM, Esther wrote: Hi Mike,There are two programs that you can use to create bootable clones of your hard drive, since you're talking about imaging and dd in linux. Cabon Copy Cloner is available from Bombich Software and is freeware. SuperDuper from Shirt Pocket Software is $28, but you can use it in clone-only mode for free. Both these programs can also update only files that were changed since your last backup. SuperDuper has an extensive manual that includes explanations about basic concepts behind backups and has a chattier dialogue, so some people prefer it for this reason. Both work fine.Cheers, EstherP.S. On the Intel Macs you can boot from a cloned disk with either Firewire or USB connections. On earlier model Power PC Macs this could only be done via a Firewire connection. I'm just mentioning this because some of the furor about Apple's dropping the Firewire port on the new late 2008 MacBooks was centered around issues like this, and other ways to restore through Firewire such as target disk mode.On Jan 9, 2009, at 5:17 AM, Michael Ryan wrote:Hi all:Is there a program available for OSX-10.X Leopard that will allow you to create an Image of your hard disk for backup and restore purposes? Something similar to Part Image and DD in Linux? If something happened, I would hate to have to re_install everything from scratch. Not a Problem mind you but it would be a pain. I'd like to Image my perfectly functioning system, complete with installed aps and files and just restore it if something major occurred.TNX all: Michael
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