Backing up...Time Machine, CarbonClone or SuperDuper?

satchmo

I picked up an external USB 500gb drive the other day to back up my iMac (It's about time. ).

Just wondering if there are any suggestions on whether or not I should partition the drive or not. One partition containing the backup and another for other stuff.

I'm still on Panther, so no Time Machine...yet. Maybe when I get a new MacBook with Leopard on it.

For now I was thinking of going the route of SuperDuper as it's had pretty good reviews. Any tips or things to be aware of before jumping in?

MacDoc

Depending on the size of your data.

One partition called Clone - same size as your internal drive and in the first partition - I'd use CCC but SD is fine too. Make sure you get the formatting correct to boot.

The rest call TimeMachine - it can be used for other stuff as well.

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krs

I have used both, Super Duper and CCC, the end result seems to be the same but I find Super Duper faster.

Also make sure your partition is large enough for the back up. I had one case where I backed up not realizing that the hard drive I was backing up was larger than the partition and SD or CCC, can't remember which I used, didn't tell me until it ran out of room.
I thought the software would have checked that before even starting the back up; even OS X will tell me that there is not enough room to copy a file to a specific location if that is the case.

satchmo

Thanks krs. I will definitely make the partition larger than the data.

MacDoc...surprised you're recommending CCC considering your signature is touting SuperDuper.

eMacMan

Last time I tested them CCC did File level clones whereas Super Duper did Block clones. The result was that SD did not clean up Fragmented HDs.

Personally I use SD to create compressed disk images. Slower save but faster restore. Also allows me to go back further than the last clone. That said for most users CCC would be more than adequate.

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mguertin

I've had better luck with SD in the long term. I did test CCC pretty extensively a few times, but ended up having strange disk image issues with it a few times. SD backups have always worked for me, but I've lost backups to both CCC and Time machine in the past (and let's not talk about retrospect!)

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MacDoc

By any chance are you using incremental??

I never use incremental - I use Odd/Even full backups - one then the other so there is always a working clone on different drives.

A key thing is to boot off the clone ten use that time to do some maintenance on the main drive.

I am NOT thrilled with TM these days - maybe okay for the user with a single drive but with multiple drives and volumes changing all the time it's a total pain.
Needs work.

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Fox

I have to agree with MacDoc about TM. I have a Time Capsule and I like it for the convenience of automatic backups for the three Macs in my home. But the other day I accidentally threw all the backup files on TC into the trash. (An easy mistake; the icon for my USB drive was identical to that of the TC backup for an individual volume. I meant to throw away files on the USB drive, not the backup.) Getting them out of the trash was impossible. Then I backed up from scratch and created a backup volume that couldn't be accessed or fixed. Then I deleted that and backed up from scratch. The first time something else happened and no backup was created. The next try was finally OK. Cloning with CCC or SD is much easier.

I have always used CCC for cloning and I never had any problems with it. I do use incremental cloning because it's faster and hasn't caused me any trouble. I have copied clones on several occasions without problem. By the way, you can do a block level clone with CCC.

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eMacMan

Just noticed that you were running Panther. With Panther I would probably use SuperDuper. Please note that you cannot use SuperDuper to do a compressed disk image of 10.3.9. You can do clones and uncompressed disk images with no problem.

NOTE: AFAIK 10.3.9 is the only system that freezes SuperDuper when doing compressed disk images. Super Duper has tried several times but failed to resolve this issue.

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chas_m

For Leopard users, I think having TWO backups is the way to go. One with Time Machine, and a daily CCC or SuperDuper clone update.

This system really gives me a lot of "peace of mind," knowing I have both bootable AND up-to-the-hour backups available to me.

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