Superduper and backup questions

[cool11]

I use superduper to clone my mbp hard drive.
I use smart update. Do you think it is the best option? Does it transfer only what changed from the last backup?
And what about files that now do not exist on the original hard drive?
Does it adds space on its backup data all the time? My hard drive occupy about 40mb and it is has total 120mb. If it do not delete files that do not exist now, it will need so much space on my external hard disk in the future.

Answer if you know how it works.

You can also tell me any good backup plan you do about your data backup. Except from superduper I write my data files to dvd for extra security.

Is it better from time to time to stop doing another smart backup with superduper and start from scratch doing a whole new backup?

 

[justG]

Does it transfer only what changed from the last backup? And what about files that now do not exist on the original hard drive?

I don't intend to be mean, but did you read the SuperDuper! screen at all? You don't even have to read the application's Help, it tells you right in the app window itself exactly what it does. SmartUpdate copies and deletes data on the target drive until it exactly matches the source.

 

[cool11]

justG thanks for mentioning this one.

Except from this I would like to know other related things about it.

Does this smart update is reliable as a whole backup? Does anyone needed to make restoration using a backup made of smaller smart backups?

It is all about a bad moment that somebody would need the backup.
It is all about restore it and actually have a system that works.

Any related experience would help me.

In windows environment I had lot of frustration when I thought I was safe and my acronis backup did not work at all!

I must admit that I have boot my mbp with the external disk (backup of internal disk using superduper) but I am new to mac world and I have fears from my windows experiences.

 

[justG]

Does this smart update is reliable as a whole backup?

They're both paths to the same destination: a clone of your startup disk. The SuperDuper! SmartUpdate function is just like taking the highway instead of local roads. =)

I've been using SuperDuper! for a while now, a couple of months if I remember correctly. I clone my startup disk (a partition on my primary drive) to a partition on my secondary drive (both internal). I've used SuperDuper!'s straight-up clone function to restore my "clean slate" partition to my startup disk, a process that took about 3 minutes. I've also booted to the SmartUpdate backup on a few occasions, in order to perform repairs on my startup disk. Basically, no matter what I've done, I've never had any problems.

I understand being worried about your data, but it's technology. Things mess up, and there's nothing that's totally fool-proof, imo. (I should know, I've done plenty of "fool"ish things to test the theory. ) If the integrity of your data is a mission- or business-critical concern, your best bet is to keep an on-site backup and an off-site one.

In any case, I think that you're safe with SuperDuper!.

Hope that helps.

 

[NuDarwin]

can't you just boot off of the cloned drive to test the backup?

 

[ogee]

Backup Strategy

Having just had a HD directory corruption, and an out of date backup, I am looking for a new backup strategy (as soon as DiskWarrior has recovered my files).

I really dont know where to look for the "best" solution. I have been using ibackup (?) from .mac, but I cant say I like it much. I am thinking about SuperDuper! as it looks good, and it can make bootable backups, but Im also a bit confused by it.

When I tried SuperDuper! it made my destination disk, firewire, bootable and set the default system boot to the external drive...why? I dont see the point of booting externally, except to restore. It has slowed my system down a lot. On the other hand, the backup is reasonable fast so I could schedule an automatic backup of the system every week. Can it also do incremental backups or child, father grandfather schemes?

What other (cheap reliable bootable) solutions are there?

 

[Wolfpup]

Having just had a HD directory corruption, and an out of date backup, I am looking for a new backup strategy (as soon as DiskWarrior has recovered my files).

Out of curiosity, what caused the corruption? Bad hardware? An OS screw up?

(Super Duper! is free, right?)

 

[ogee]

Out of curiosity, what caused the corruption? Bad hardware? An OS screw up?

(Super Duper! is free, right?)

SuperDuper! is partially free I think, I got nag screens.


As for the screw up, Im not sure. My system usually runs 24/7, but was shut down for 3 weeks whilst we were on holiday. On my return I got an upgrade MS Office message and that failed (cant find correct program or something). At about the same time an Apple upgrade started. I also had a file in the trash bin that I could not delete, and I moved it out of the bin to another disk and deleted it there without problems.

Then I ran disk utilities and it reported node corruption (?). Booted to the install CD to make a repair and bang, faild with fatal errors can not repair disk etc and after that it could not be mounted.

I have downloaded diskwarrior and recovered my files.DW reports no hardwarer problems so I am now 35 x ersed disk before I repartition and re-install the OS. (I think a 50GB partition will be more than enough, yes / no?)

 

[dolphin842]

When I tried SuperDuper! it made my destination disk, firewire, bootable and set the default system boot to the external drive...why?

SuperDuper usually doesn't change your default boot disk, though there is an option to do that in the "On successful completion" drop-down box; make sure you don't have "Set [external disk] as Startup Disk" selected there.

SuperDuper + external firewire drive is currently my backup method of choice. Erasing and cloning is free; the Smart Update functionality (identical to Erase and Clone, but takes 8 minutes instead of 1.5 hours) and other stuff requires the $27 license. Personally, Smart Update has saved my posterior on one occasion when a drive died, so I feel I've got my money's worth .

One thing this system doesn't protect against, though, is silent data corruption. For example, there was some random file deep in my drive that got corrupted. SuperDuper actually prevented me from updating my backup because of this file. The only option was to delete it in order to get the backup rolling again. This is where an internal and external drive linked up in a ZFS mirror would be superior, because of all the checksumming and behind-the-scenes replacement likely would have 'healed' the corrupt file.

Until we get ZFS though, SuperDuper + bootable external drive works for me.

 

[ogee]

It looks like I had selected that option. My system is almost back to how I want it, and I have started another backup, before I move some files and make it "final".

I think I will be buying SuperDuper! next month as well.

 

[Philly]

Hi!
I have had SuperDuper! for months now but It is only today that I have to use it to restore my primary.

When I open SuperDuper! it only gives me the option to "Copy" from one drive to another. Is this the same as restoring, or should there be a "Restore" option available to choose?

I know that I can do it through Disk Utility, but I really want to try it with SuperDuper.

Thanks,

Philly

 

[72930]

Yeah Philly, copying deletes the original, so you are making the second drive hold exactly the same data as the one you are copying from

 

[Philly]

Hi, thanks...

So if I "Copy" from my external (the clone backup) "to" Macintosh HD it will erase the Hard drive and replace it with an exact copy of my backup?

 

[cool11]

Still using this wonderful application!

But today I observed that 'applications' folder of internal drive contains 63 apps,
while the 'applications' folder in the external backup drive contains only 24 apps!

Is this normal? Something I do not know? Or it is a malfunction?
Can someone else check these folders?

 

[Fishrrman]

cool -

Could some of these applications be in your home/applications folder?
(rather than in the OS' "root" folder for applications?

 

[cool11]

cool -

Could some of these applications be in your home/applications folder?
(rather than in the OS' "root" folder for applications?

After your message, I searched for other 'Applications' folders, I one, in 'System', what is this? Less apps here. Same apps in root/Applications and in System/Applications, but much more in root/Applications folder?

In any case, my comparison is between the root/Applications folder, both in internal mac hard drive, and also the backup external hard drive. Isn't it supposed that both of them should be identical, with the same number of programs?
But the backup, has much less. I do not know why, there should be some kind of explanation, a lot of my applications seem to be missing.

 

[Boyd01]

I have not followed the details very well, but Apple made a major change with Big Sur (I think) to lock down all the pre-installed software. As I understand, third party software like superduper and carbon copy can no longer directly copy files from the system, they must use a secure MacOS API.

This is what I think you're seeing - look at the Applications folder in System - in terminal, you can view the contents with this command

ls -l /System/Applications

This should be all the pre-installed Mac software. Now do the same with the other Applications folder

ls -l /Applications

This should be a list of only the third party apps that you have installed. I think this is the discrepancy you're seeing. Sorry, no experience with SuperDuper, I use Carbon Copy Cloner. But I think the bottom line is that Apple doesn't want you to do your own backups of system files/pre-installed apps anymore since that opens the door to security risks. They want you to restore their software directly from their servers.

 

[reevescajr]

Yea, I learned awhile back that SuperDuper no longer backs up the System files. If you want the backup drive to be bootable, you need to erase it, install the System on it, then run SuperDuper. I'm a bit paranoid and have three bootable backup drives. If I do System Settings>General>Startup Disk, they are listed but are showing their System to be 13.6, what I was running when I created them. I am running 14.5 on my boot drive. SuperDuper backs the boot drive to them every night. If something happens to my boot drive and I have to boot off one of them, I'm hoping I will be able to update its System. BTW, my boot drive is an SSD, and one of the backup drives is the iMac internal drive.

 

[cool11]

I have not followed the details very well, but Apple made a major change with Big Sur (I think) to lock down all the pre-installed software. As I understand, third party software like superduper and carbon copy can no longer directly copy files from the system, they must use a secure MacOS API.

This is what I think you're seeing - look at the Applications folder in System - in terminal, you can view the contents with this command

ls -l /System/Applications

This should be all the pre-installed Mac software. Now do the same with the other Applications folder

ls -l /Applications

This should be a list of only the third party apps that you have installed. I think this is the discrepancy you're seeing. Sorry, no experience with SuperDuper, I use Carbon Copy Cloner. But I think the bottom line is that Apple doesn't want you to do your own backups of system files/pre-installed apps anymore since that opens the door to security risks. They want you to restore their software directly from their servers.

After this useful information,
I made a sum and comparison.

Internal drive 'Applications' folder: 63 items
External drive 'System/Applications' and 'Applications' folder = 36+24 = 60 items.

Just a difference of 3.
So I think you are right.

And I believe that it is just the way that superduper team had to handle it, after apple's new restrictions.
So I guess that there should not be a problem at all, if I ever need to restore or boot from the bootable image I take everyday with 'smart update' option in superduper.

 

[reevescajr]

...And I believe that it is just the way that superduper team had to handle it, after apple's new restrictions.
So I guess that there should not be a problem at all, if I ever need to restore or boot from the bootable image I take everyday with 'smart update' option in superduper.

But if you are running Big Sur or later, Smart Update no longer creates a bootable image. Pull up System Settings>General>Startup Disk. Unless you first made the disk bootable, it won't appear in the list of bootable drives.

 

[cool11]

But if you are running Big Sur or later, Smart Update no longer creates a bootable image. Pull up System Settings>General>Startup Disk. Unless you first made the disk bootable, it won't appear in the list of bootable drives.

I always use the latest os version.
At this time, sonoma.

Help me remember and clarify:
The only way to make a bootable copy with superduper, it is to avoid smart update, and go for full/total backup?
Of course, if this is the case, it requires many hours to complete, anything else, am I missing something?

 

[reevescajr]

NO. Neither Smart Update nor the full update will create a bootable drive. Below is the procedure I used to do so. This procedure is for Intel Macs. That for silicon Macs is slightly different. Also, I believe this procedure erases the drive you are making bootable, although I might have erased the drive first.

Creating the bootable drive:

1. If the drive is not already connected to the computer, connect it and power it on.
2. Restart the computer in Recovery Mode (hold down the Command and R keys).

If you haven't allowed for booting from external or removable media, perform steps 3-7 below. If you have already done this, skip to step 8.

3. When prompted, choose your username from the list shown.
4. Enter your admin password for that username.
5. From the menu bar, choose Utilities > Startup Security Utility
6. Log in
7. Click to select Allow booting from external or removable media. Skip to step 9.

8. A grey Apple logo will appear with a darker grey text entry box below. Enter your password in the box and press Return. Prepare to wait a bit...
9. At this point the normal OS Install window should appear. Pick the drive you want to install the OS ontofrom the list that will appear when you click the see more drives link.

Once the OS is installed on the drive, the computer will boot from the drive, and will run Migration Assistant to copy files from your normal boot disk drive. This could awhile, depending on how much is on the drive...

 

[Blarnld]

Let's keep this going...But with Sonoma and M3 MacBook. Let's say I have a new M3 Macbook Air running Sonoma 14.5 and I have just bought a new SSD external drive (Samsung T7) to use only for SuperDuper backup. I've downloaded latest version of SuperDuper (3.8).

1. Is there a way to make a Bootable drive?
2. What steps to prepare SSD, format?
3. What steps to use SuperDuper for the first time?
4. What steps to use SuperDuper going forward to keep up to date backups?
5. What steps to restore a lost or stolen MacBook?
6. What have I done to deserve this? ; )

Many Thanks!

 

[reevescajr]

Here's an article that addresses silicon Macs, although it is written for Monterey:

Creating a bootable silicon Mac drive

My SSD boot drive is formatted as APFS.

 

[Boyd01]

I always made bootable backups with Carbon Copy for many years, but not anymore. Things used to be easier - make a bootable clone of your Mac, then if you wanted to restore, just clone the backup to the internal drive again and everything is back to normal. But you really can't do that anymore because of MacOS security and the sealed system volume.

I understand how there might be some use for a bootable external disk, but it just doesn't make sense to me as a backup anymore. I only backup my user files and apps now. If you have to restore your internal drive now (AFAIK), you must install the system directly from Apple instead of your own copy.