Pity the plight of Leopard users, who have wandered in the backup wilderness for so long, with only the ghost of H.G Wells to show them the path forward. Sure, Carbon Copy Cloner 3 has been a friend in time of need, but for those who crave a bootable clone that updates automatically and has a support team standing behind it, the long wait is over. SuperDuper! 2.5 has landed.
Dave Nanian has entertained us with the ongoing story of 2.5's road to release on the Shirt Pocket blog, including the pain and challenges of building compatibility with Time Machine's interesting new approaches to linking and storage. With backups now supporting both bootable clones to volumes shared with Time Machine (probably the perfect recovery option) and a free, works-forever trial still available (adding scheduling and smart copies costs $27.95), you owe it to yourself and your backups to give SD! a shot. We'll be testing out the Time Machine interoperability and will report back ASAP.
Thanks Laurie + everyone who sent this in.
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
2-05-2008 @ 11:35AM
brian said...
Not sure if you can call it entertainment when it took almost 5 months to get this working when no major app took half this long. I wonder how many users they have lost at this point since people who upgraded still needed to be able to back up the past several months.
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2-05-2008 @ 1:42PM
Dave said...
I used Carbon Copy Cloner (CCC) while waiting for SuperDuper. Yes, I agree it felt like a long time. But I think it was well worth it. Dave (the author, not I) kept his users up-to-date on his blog with the challenges he was facing.
I use both Time Machine and SuperDuper now--both have their advantages. After doing some extensive research online, what I found is that SuperDuper uses its own copy engine and it really does make an -exact- clone of the disk. Others (CCC included) do a good job, but leave out some metadata, etc.
Keep in mind that the reason some developers take longer to release updates is because of how their software works. Apple made some major changes to the way permissions, etc. are handled between Tiger and Leopard; this affected SuperDuper and therefore it took longer to update.
Did he lose customers? Maybe, but he didn't lose me--and I know I'm not alone.
And to echo other commenters, look at Microsoft will their billions. They -just- released Office. Ironically, Microsoft -did- lose me as a customer. I had purchased Office 2004, but decided not to update to 2008 because Apple really made some great changes in iWork '08. And iWork '08 is cheaper, faster, uses less hard drive space and does a great job for what I need. And isn't that what it's really about? Each individual user's needs.
2-05-2008 @ 11:59AM
MacBookUser said...
"Not sure if you can call it entertainment when it took almost 5 months to get this working when no major app took half this long."
You mean like MS Office? With its huge staff, vs. Nanian? Give the guy a fucking break. If its "too late" for your needs, fine. The rest of us are happy its out. Jesus, what a whiner.
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2-05-2008 @ 12:03PM
David said...
I've been using the Tiger version of SuperDuper! in Leopard without any problems, so it's not like I haven't been able to back-up my computer for this whole time. SuperDuper! is such a great product that I doubt they lost a bunch of customers over this (unless other users have had trouble using the previous version of SD in Leopard).
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2-06-2008 @ 12:19PM
Howard Jeffrey said...
I too have used Super Duper Tiger version with Leopard for my nightly backups w/o a hitch. I suspect the issue is when one is dealing with a bootable disk .... I have been using it for data back up (my user files)
2-05-2008 @ 12:05PM
matt said...
It's not whining to point out the truth. Almost 5 months to get out a working superduper is pathetic. The fact that most people find that no big deal, or that he has a staff of one, or whatever, doesn't change that.
Here's hoping that time machine becomes bootable in the next OS release because shirt-pocket clearly can't keep up.
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2-05-2008 @ 12:17PM
mingistech said...
don't be such a douche.
2-05-2008 @ 12:22PM
Lars said...
By that reasoning any company with a huge amount of resources (Apple, Microsoft) should be able to get stuff out, say, tomorrow?
I read that Apple is taking it's time with 10.5.2, for instance. Forshame!
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2-05-2008 @ 12:42PM
Dave Barnes said...
@Brian (#1)
Shirt Pocket took 3.5 months after Leopard's release. Not 5 months.
Adobe has not yet releases their Leopard fixes.
Some people http://guides.macrumors.com/List_of_Applications_Not_Compatible_with_Leopard are still not Leopard-compatible.
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2-05-2008 @ 12:42PM
Christian said...
Carbon Copy Cloner was Leopard compatible ages ago. One developer. I can't cut him slack; I switched to Time Machine and CCC for disk-to-disk copies. I won't be going back.
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2-05-2008 @ 12:53PM
Austin said...
I never understood the need for SuperDuper. I've tried it. I'll stick with Carbon Copy Cloner.
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2-05-2008 @ 1:16PM
Alan Fleming said...
This is great news. While Time Machine is more than fine for "oh god I didn't mean to do that" type recovery at any time, there's nothing quite as reassuring as a bootable copy of your entire HD, for those horrible moments when something really serious happens. I've been travelling with my Macbook Pro in fear and dread for the past few months, knowing I could have real problems if it got crunched. I can breathe easy again.
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2-05-2008 @ 1:24PM
John.B said...
ProTools is a major app, and they *still* don't have a clue when it comes to Leopard.
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2-05-2008 @ 1:34PM
J.Stone said...
Bitch, bitch, bitch, this little gem was worth waiting for. The developers took the time needed to release an application that works as good as it says it does. I for one appreciate someone who takes the time to do things right the first time, instead of releasing updates every few days until they get it right. The scheduling of backups, and the ability to choose what and when easily makes this worth it for me. IMHO It's a good piece of software at a reasonable price,and I'm glad it's back.
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2-05-2008 @ 1:52PM
Rob said...
The software to clone Mac Disks is ALREADY preinstalled on all Macs running OS X. But you must use the Terminal in execute the commands. SuperDuper just adds a nice GUI.
There are two other alternatives (which are truly FREEWARE):
1. Carbon Copy Cloner
http://www.bombich.com/software/ccc.html
2. CloneTool Hatchery
http://www.macupdate.com/info.php/id/24693/clonetool-hatchery
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2-05-2008 @ 1:55PM
Brady Williams said...
of course the day after i erase my backup drive and use carbon copy cleanup well yet another night of my computer backing up
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2-05-2008 @ 5:28PM
robogobo said...
I've used CCC for four years, and it's always made bootable clones, had great synchronization features, and it's free. 3.0 makes a block-level clone, syncs over a network and was Leopard compatble weeks ago. Can someone tell me exactly what SD has over it? I sincerely want to know.
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2-05-2008 @ 5:29PM
robogobo said...
btw, "free" means everybody donates via paypal. Please don't forget how friggin awesome that is.
2-05-2008 @ 5:40PM
Michael Rose said...
http://blog.plasticsfuture.org/2006/04/23/mac-backup-software-harmful/
It's a bit dated now, but at the time, the only Mac backup tool that actually preserved metadata was SuperDuper!.
CCC won't clone your boot drive onto a TimeMachine volume, nor (as far as I know) will it duplicate a TimeMachine target volume. Not sure whether CCC will preserve Spotlight indexes.
CCC is NOT freeware, it is shareware with no time limit or feature restriction. If you use it you are obligated to donate.
2-05-2008 @ 5:59PM
robogobo said...
Thanks for adding those points. Not sure what "boot your drive onto a TimeMachine volume" means. But it will definitely clone a TimeMachine target volume. And it preserves Spotlight and all other metadata.
>CCC is NOT freeware, it is shareware with no time limit or >feature restriction. If you use it you are obligated to donate.
Not exactly true. I have donated several times, but merely using it once or twice does not obligate you to pay, and there's no set price. This makes it "donationware", not shareware.