SuperDuper instead of TimeMachine

Because of its incremental backup, and the more involved method of restoring in Time Machine, I've grown accustomed to using SuperDuper. I use SmartUpdate every night to keep things current.
Because SuperDuper not only gives me a bootable disk, but also gives me the files exactly as I have them on the internal drive, I can't see a reason to jump through the hoops of learning Time Machine and relying upon it restoring from the original disks should things go wrong.
Before I cast off the notion of using Time Machine at all, I'm curious if I'm missing something in its features that I should be considering. Is there a reason that Time Machine would be a better experience over SuperDuper?

Keith Raygor wrote:
Because SuperDuper . . . also gives me the files exactly as I have them on the internal drive
What do you mean by this? In the TM interface ("Star Wars" display), your backups can be viewed via a Finder window, just as on your internal HD.
. . . and relying upon it restoring from the original disks should things go wrong.
You only need your Leopard Install disc to do a full restore of your entire system (such as after a hard drive failure). And you only need it for the installer, you don't actually restore anything from the disc, only from your TM backups.
All other restores, such as of an item that was changed or deleted in error, or somehow corrupted, are done easily from the TM interface.
Before I cast off the notion of using Time Machine at all, I'm curious if I'm missing something in its features that I should be considering. Is there a reason that Time Machine would be a better experience over SuperDuper?
They are different; each has it's advantages and disadvantages. As Barry says, many of us run both (I use CarbonCopyCloner) both as a belt-and-suspenders sort of thing, and to get the advantages of both.
You might want to review these:
Time Machine Tutorial
Time Machine 101
How to back up and restore your files
Time Machine Features
and perhaps browse the Time Machine - Frequently Asked Questions *User Tip* at the top of this forum.

Similar Messages

I currently have Lion, when I upgrade to Mountain Lion, all my apps, music, videos and other files will be erased?

I currently have Lion, when I upgrade to Mountain Lion, all my apps, music, videos and other files will be erased?

Lion dropped application support for PowerPC. An OS may drop or change what to use to open a file, not the file.
Of course CCC is what many have used for 10 yrs now and it is or will be $20 like SuperDuper - commercial.
Always use something like those in addition to or instead of TimeMachine.

Why would an empty(?) folder contain 40Gb for 0 items?

I've been trying to back up a network shared hard drive to an external hard drive and occassionally the hourly backup folders turn up empty. When I use Finder to "Get Info" the folder size is listed as "40.7 Gb for 0 items". What I hope this means is that the backup folders aren't truly empty, it's just that the contents are somehow invisible. Can anyone decipher this?
Thanks

Robert$ wrote:
Sometimes the backup files are visible. Sometimes they are visible when created, but when I return to them a day later they have disappeared.
Run the #12 OnyX routine here, consider not using software that came with hard drives or what your using any longer, it might have issues or doesn't get updated fast ennough.
Step by Step to fix your Mac
Use TimeMachine or Carbon Copy Cloner or Superduper instead.
Most commonly used backup methods

Mountain Lion: When I start apps, they start behind other apps

When I start an app (like Safari, Mail, Terminal or other app), its window appears behind another app. Why is that? How can i fix it?

Lion dropped application support for PowerPC. An OS may drop or change what to use to open a file, not the file.
Of course CCC is what many have used for 10 yrs now and it is or will be $20 like SuperDuper - commercial.
Always use something like those in addition to or instead of TimeMachine.

Disk Utility Image backup - 8 hours and counting. ?

So I'm doing a backup image in Disk Utility. Started up from the install DVD 10.6 and went into D U and making an image of my Macbook's (2008) HD (250gb) and saving it to a WD usb 2.0 external drive. I'm going on 8 hours. I know it takes a while but I swear my iBook from 2002 is faster on USB 1.0 . Is this normal? I feel like I would have been better off putting it in Target Disk Mode and used another Mac to back it up instead. I want all my data after the restore so I thought the image was the best way to go. This can't be the fastest way. Would this go any faster on FireWire? I know the file transfer itself can't take 8 hours can it? I'm miffed. Any advice?
PS - Used SuperDuper a month ago and that took 7 hours.

Thomas A Reed wrote:
+_Also, why did you boot from the install disk? That is absolutely not necessary. I'd also absolutely, 100% recommend against using disk images for backup. Large disk images are too easy to corrupt, which will cause you to lose everything they contain. They're just not good enough for backups. Use [Carbon Copy Cloner|http://www.bombich.com> or SuperDuper instead...+_
I was following Apple's instructions http://support.apple.com/kb/ht1553
I had it backed up in SuperDuper and Time Machine as well. I knew I could get all of my data with an image and I've never used SD for importing data, only whole disk images.
_+You didn't say how full your hard drive is. If your drive isn't anywhere near capacity, it shouldn't be taking that long. If it is too close to capacity, that could be part of the problem.+_
Yeah, I was at 240/250gb. I didn't think about that. Thats also good to know.
The external 1TB WD USB2 drive I used was the same drive that a few months back I transferred 900+ gigs to from my W7 computer with a esata drive. (1tb WD usb2 to esata 1tb through my W7 PC). While I know the esata is super fast, that WD 1TB USB2 drive "was" fast (35 - 50 sustained speed?) and it took maybe six hours for 900+gb. Thats why I'm confused.
All in all I really don't care if it takes that long if I know that ahead of time. It's one thing to hit a button and go to sleep, but another to get it done ASAP because it's 5am and I should have been done by midnight at the latest. I need to use it all day today.
Thanks guys.
Message was edited by: dtommyd2

Seagate XT 'disaster' redux

I have been trying to upgrade my MacBook Pro (15-inch late 2008) with a Seagate XT (1Tb) drive. There were no problems with installing a bootable copy of OS X and transferring the data while it was in an external enclosure. However I have not been able to get it to work once installed inside the MBP. The specifics vary slightly, but basically the drive usually crashes after 10-15 minutes. When I run Disk Utility, it says the drive is fine but notes lots of permission problems. When I try to fix them, the drive dismounts.
This problem seems to have been covered in the long-running "Seagate Momentus XT Disaster" thread. Can Csound1 (or other participants) tell me: were the problems which tomfromchicago and others were having likely because of the eSata cable connection to the internal hard drive? Should that be the next thing I try to fix? Apologies, but I found the original thread itself slightly difficult to follow....
Thanks (in advance),
Bill

tomfromchicago wrote:
OGELTHORPE wrote:
Does this particular HDD have a Sudden Motion Sensor built in? If so, it may be conflicting with the MBP SMS.
Have you contacted Seagate technical support on this issue?
Ciao.
Yes. They have never heard of this problem before and could not offer any solution.
I was suggested to try to do a fresh install of OS X onto this drive rather than a clone. Also, before that I am going to try to close with SuperDuper, instead of Carbon Copy Cloner.
It does not sound like the Momentus XT drive is compatible with Mac. A real shame as I can't get my money back and the drive so far is useless.
I have 2 MBP 13" (both mid 2009) both fitted with the 500G XT, I have a 2011 MBP 13" fitted with the 750G XT, and I have fitted one or the other XT to several other Macs and and PC's. I have never had a problem with any of them.
But I do my housekeeping which includes ensuring that the drives had the latest firmware (SD28 for a 500 and SM12 for a 750)
You did update your drive before complaining I assume?

Beware: if you run Lion on a separate drive, don't update aperture

I'm not sure how MacOSX managed it, but I ran Aperture tonight (on SnowLeopard) and it tells me that I can't run this version of Aperture on my operating system!
The problem is, I never updated to the version it was claiming. The AppStore prevented me from updating to the "Lion Only" version. So what happened?
I have Lion installed on another drive. It has nothing to do with my Snow Leopard drive, there's no connections to it. But after I updated Aperture on that drive, on Lion, it must have decided to update my Snow Leopard partition as well - and bypassed all the obvious problems with that.
TimeMachine came to the rescue, but still. I'm surprised Apple could find a way to corrupt my installation this way.
AppStore runs around all drives looking for Application folders to update, regardless of OS?

Sounds to me like the launch services didn't use the version of Aperture in /Applications on SL but launch the one on the ML drive instead.
TimeMachine reverted the library back to how it was previously, so that rules out "having been opened by 3.3"
One way to test: pull the other drives other than the one with the OS you want to use or test with.
Pull the drives and leave only one. I assume you would also clone your systems for backup so you have working untouched off line copies of each using Carbon Copy Cloner or another.
Merging libraries iPhoto libraries in Aperture
Note: Before you start, you must have opened each iPhoto library you intend to merge at east once in iPhoto 9.3 or later.
To merge the libraries:
Open Aperture 3.3 or later.
Click the File menu and choose Switch to Library > Other/New. Use the library selector to choose one of the iPhoto libraries you'd like to merge.
Choose File > Import > Library
Select one of the remaining iPhoto libraries you wish to merge.
Repeat steps 3-4 for each additional iPhoto library you wish to merge.
The library you started with in step 2 above includes content from all the merged libraries. The other libraries are still present (and useable) on your computer. Once you have confirmed that the unified library is working correctly, you may wish to remove the other libraries from your hard drive. It is a good idea to back up all your libraries before doing so.
https://support.apple.com/kb/HT5296

Migrate to new Macbook Pro

I am going to be migrating from an older macbook pro to an newer macbook pro. Which is the best way to migrate 1) from mac to mac or 2) via time machine backup? Thanks

When you get the new Mac (you wrote "will be getting..." so I assume you don't have it yet), the "out of the box experience" when you first boot will offer to do the migration for you -- and it'll invoke Migration Assistant to do this. It's actually a little less confusing if you the migration right at this time (rather than continue without restoring and then manually running Migration Assistant later). This is because Migration Assistant wont let you restore an account if an account with the same name already exists.... meaning if you type in your same firstname / lastname and let it make an account with the same name, THEN try to run Migration Assistant, it wont restore your own files to your account because an account with the same name already exists (it will block the restore if either the accounts "short name" matches OR if the full name (first & last) are identical. If you do the restore when the out-of-the-box experience prompts for it no account will have been created yet and you wont have this problem. (if you DO choose to do it later, then just create a temporary account on the new Mac so you wont have an account name collision. You can delete the temporary account after you complete the migration.)
"Migration Assistant" does have an option to use the Time Machine drive as a source for your data.
It's a smarter restore because it can create the user accounts, machine specific configuration (network settings, wireless networks, printers, etc.), as well as all your applications. This is considerably easier than trying to use the Time Machine interface to manually select everything you want to restore.
If you do a machine-to-machine restore (with the old Mac booting in "target firewire mode") then you'll have no use of either computer until the restore is complete. If you do a restore from a bootable backup drive (the sort of thing you could create with a utility such as 'SuperDuper') or a TimeMachine backup volume then you wont have both machines tied up. Depending on how much data you have to restore, it could take a few hours.

Time machine to make bootable external hd?

I just got a new MacBook for christmas. I used Macs years ago, but not in the past few years. Have a question:
I had a 200 gig external usb drive handy, so I used it to do a Time Machine backup yesterday, now that I've got my mac all set up with my personal files, software installed, etc. It worked fine (though took LONG for only 40 gig of data). I've heard that it's possible for newer macs and 10.6 to boot from an external usb drive. Which got me thinking it might be a good idea to pick up another external usb drive, RESTORE my time machine backup to IT, and then if my internal drive dies, I'd be able to immediately boot off that external drive and be in business until I get around to replacing the internal drive.
Anyway, it seems like a good "preventive maintenance" thing to do. My question is if this is indeed possible, what pitfalls I might run into, and the order of steps I should take to pull it off correctly.
Much thanks for any help.

eegad wrote:
I just got a new MacBook for christmas. I used Macs years ago, but not in the past few years. Have a question:
I had a 200 gig external usb drive handy, so I used it to do a Time Machine backup yesterday, now that I've got my mac all set up with my personal files, software installed, etc. It worked fine (though took LONG for only 40 gig of data). I've heard that it's possible for newer macs and 10.6 to boot from an external usb drive. Which got me thinking it might be a good idea to pick up another external usb drive, RESTORE my time machine backup to IT, and then if my internal drive dies, I'd be able to immediately boot off that external drive and be in business until I get around to replacing the internal drive.
Anyway, it seems like a good "preventive maintenance" thing to do. My question is if this is indeed possible, what pitfalls I might run into, and the order of steps I should take to pull it off correctly.
yes, this is possible. in order to restore TM backups to the external first reformat the external correctly. it should be formatted mac os extended journaled and the partition scheme should be GUID. (that's important). then boot from the snow leopard install dvd and use the 'restore system from backup' utility in the Utilities menu to restore the backups to the external.
the main pitfall here is that TM is still quite buggy and it's sometimes known not to back up (and restore) everything that it should. and you might not notice this right away. the best thing to do is to make a direct bootable clone using CCCloner or Superduper instead of restoring from TM. this will save you time and you won't be relying on just TM for everything.
Much thanks for any help.

Do I need to load Maxtor External Drive software?

I just bought a Maxtor OneTouch III external hard drive. Is it really necessary to load the accompanying software? Can't I just connect the drive only?

No need to install it. It is likely just Windows software anyway.
If it does come with Mac software on the disk, it is probably the Retrospect Express backup software. You can try it, but a lot of people here - including myself - use SuperDuper instead.

Boot Camp won't install on my mac

Now I understand, Go to Applications, Utilities, Boot Camp. So I try and run boot camp assistant, Click I have the installation cd and hit continue.Then I go to the WIndow where it shows me how much Space you want for windows. And I click around 60 gigs. I hit Partition.Status: Partitioning Disc. BOOT CAMP ASSISTANT: THE DISC CANNOT BE PARTITIONED BECAUSE SOME FILES CANNOT BE REMOVED: Back up the disk and use Disk Utility to format it as a single Mac OS Extended (Journaled) volume. Restore your information to the disk and try using Boot Camp Assistant again.SO I go to disk utilitiy and click on my HD, Click on Partition. Format is MAC OS Extended ( Journaled ) Size 249 GB. Now I am trying to partition the disc in disc utility under my Hard drive, Partition, Click how much room I want but still get an error:PARTITION FAILED. COULD NOT MODIFY PARTITION MAP BECAUSE FILE SYSTEM VERIFICATION FAILED...What am I doing wrong here? I Verified disk permissions and it went fine..but still I cant get boot camp to instal

BAD message. common also. Misleading definitely.
Zap PRAM
Repair Permissions
Verify the drive
Safe Boot
Try again.
If that does not work boot in safe mode or DVD and then shrink the parittion by 70GB.
Then take it back to full length.
That should fix or get around it.
Otherwise if those do not THEN you need to take your backup and boot from another device, erase and restore.
I prefer Carbon Copy Cloner instead of TimeMachine.
How to clone your system:
http://macperformanceguide.com/Mac-HowToClone-backup.html
http://macperformanceguide.com/Mac-HowToClone.html
http://www.macupdate.com/app/mac/7032/carbon-copy-cloner

G5 won't start

G'day all. Had a power cut here a couple of days ago and since then I can't get the G5, which was on at the time, to start up.
To kick off with it wouldn't chime and would only get as far as the spinning gear wheel, and after a few minutes the fans would start spinning at high speed. After doing some reading here we reset the PRAM and NVRAM according to the instruction. That got us a startup chime again but it still got no further than the spinning gear, still with high speed fans after a few minutes. Next we had the side off and tried resetting the cuda/PMU, but that didn't get us any further. So in goes the Leopard disk to see if Disk Utility can help, but Disk Utility couldn't see the volume. The drive, yes, but not the volume marked Macintosh HD, though it could see the volumes on the second internal drive and the firewire external we use for Time Machine. The Verify and Repair buttons were greyed out, presumably because the volume couldn't be seen. So it seemed like the next thing to try was to restore the system from Time Machine. This seemed to take a long time without actually doing anything at all. So long in fact that the external drive actually gave up and went to sleep. Some more reading suggested that I should have erased and re-partitioned the drive first. So that's what I did, but the Time Machine system restore still seems either to get stuck or to go on for an incredibly long time for a 140GB drive (2/3 full).
So what should I do next? Should I take a day off and start the system restore at dawn in the hope that it'll be done before I go to bed? Or can I reinstall Leopard and then get at the the Time Machine contents? Will it recognize that it's still the same machine and let me use the normal Time Machine interface? Wasn't there some kind of migration procedure involving Time Machine backups to move all your stuff to another Mac, and if so what is it and should I use it for this?
Thanks,
SLTS
Edit: by the way, it was on a surge protected board when the power went so I'm really at a loss as to why we've got this problem. I'm seriously considering a UPS after this.
Message was edited by: Smeltliketeenspirit
Message was edited by: Smeltliketeenspirit

A UPS I consider a must (why I put it in .sig).
I would also replace your internal drive(s), unless it is a 10K Raptor but today's SATA drives are cheap and fast and good value for less than $100.
T/M should be much faster I think. Even 30GB per hour would be slower than I like.
Never ever rely on just one backup method or set. Or drive. I would never be without a bootable backup from SuperDuper along with TimeMachine. You could put them both on one large volume with two partitions, but better to have separate drives.
Another essential, Alsoft Disk Warrior. Don't rely on just Apple First Aid, Disk Utility is not robust enough and misses too many things that matter.
Time off: battery or no internet connection, or both. Or battery took a hit and got fried. Ethernet ports can also get fried so your UPS should have RJ45, and protection for whatever modems.
I like to have a boot drive; a data drive; an emergency boot drive that is used only for repairing other drives; and two backups. Might even throw in a "Test System Drive" to test any and every OS patch and update on first.
A fresh install would be how I would begin to proceed.
WD Caviar 640GB
http://eshop.macsales.com/item/Western%20Digital/WD6400AAKS/
SuperDuper
http://www.shirt-pocket.com/SuperDuper/SuperDuperDescription.html
Disk Warrior
http://alsoft.com/DiskWarrior/diskwarriorupdate.html
1500VA UPS that will handle any G5 tower or Mac Pro with reasonable amount of equipment, and protection for modems, routers, Ethernet and more.
http://www.amazon.com/APC-BR1500LCD-1500VA-Outlets-BACK-UPS/dp/B000NDA5E0/
http://www.amazon.com/APC-BR1500-Back-UPS-1500VA-Computers/dp/B0000936B6/
- prices on UPS have gone up, or back to what they were years ago.
You should be able to use TimeMachine to another Mac, not sure if there is any integration with Migration Assistant (moving from PPC to Intel has some special considerations).

Time machine not copying to new drive

running 10.6.8. I have two new hard drives and have them connected one at a time via USB cable to my MBP intel core i5.
I am using time machine to Backup my system drive. Time machine stopped the back up and displays an error. Here is the eventual error "The backup was not performed because an erorr occurred while copying files to the backup disk. The probem may be temporary. Try again later to back up. If the problem persists, use Disk Utility to repair your backup disk."
I used disk utility repair drive and the drive passes. I am not able to continue forward with time machine and receive the same error again.
Both drives experience this same behavior. Are both drives just bad and need to be replaced? Open to any suggestions on how to cure this issu.
Here is the log from disk utility:
--- snip ---
Verify and Repair volume “Untitled 1”
Verify and Repair volume “Untitled 1”
Checking Journaled HFS Plus volume.
Checking extents overflow file.
Checking catalog file.
Checking multi-linked files.
Checking catalog hierarchy.
Checking extended attributes file.
Checking multi-linked directories.
Checking volume bitmap.
Checking volume information.
The volume Untitled 1 appears to be OK.
Volume repair complete.Updating boot support partitions for the volume as required.
--- snip ----

Did you verify your MBP's HD, or the external HD's?
IMHO, Time Machine is great when it works, but it's not the most reliable backup. You may want to consider CarbonCopyCloner or SuperDuper instead.

Is there an official Apple solution to migrating bootcamp partitions?

Im trying to migrate my bootcamp partition to a new mac but both WinClone and Disk Utility give me errors.
Is there an official way to migrate bootcamp to a new drive?

No, and Apple would say this is more Windows, afterall, even "Windows on Mac" seems to come up short (driver and install issues).
WinClone has issues, and migrating to a new different motherboard is an issue in and of itself for Windows.
Casper 6 is commercial but can clone Windows to another drive.
To clone Mac OS, I recommend SuperDuper instead of Apple Disk Utility Restore. There is also Carbon Copy Cloner though you should really just use Setup or Migration Assistant from the new Mac with its own OS.
Even the subject of cloning Windows on PC hardware you will see different ideas, recommendations, whether to use Windows 7 own built in system image/restore or Acronis (Acronis doesn't support Boot Camp partitions).

Would you buy TC again?

With the recent bump to 1TB and the need for a new wireless router I'm considering a TC but boy, the experiences seem to be all over the place. I know this is a forum for people trying to iron out problems but if you currently own a TC, would you buy one again? Would you recommend to other mac users?
I may not go the wireless Time Machine route given some of the problems I've heard and my experience with Time Machine on my work iMac. May use SuperDuper instead or equivalent.

Without a doubt I'd buy one again. I have one and my mother bought one. Not a problem between us (over a year +). As you correctly said this is a place where people come to help solve problems so you will see a higher rate of no responses.
I have a dual band Time Capsule and the network is much stronger than my old Linsys router. No backup problems but I did the first one via Ethernet.
When I bought a new iMac I was able to use the Time Machine backup to transfer all my files and preference from my old mac mini. Took about 40 minutes. How can you beat that?

SuperDuper instead of TimeMachine

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