Cloning my hard-drive

I would like to keep a clone of my hard-drive as an off-site back-up. I'm not a photo pro so there are no life-and-death issues. I've had a look at Super Duper and Carbon Copy Cloner and can't work out what the big differences are so can't decide whether it matters which one I go with. I there a thread/article that someone can point me to that explains the differences, if indeed there are any of any significance for my situation?

I run an incremental back-up to a Time Capsule using Time Machine, so the idea is to increase the insurance by keeping an off-site clone

Thanks

stowei said:

I've had a look at Super Duper and Carbon Copy Cloner and can't work out what the big differences are so can't decide whether it matters which one I go with.

Click to expand...

CCC is free (but accepts donations), SD is not free (at least in the version which allows you to update a clone without copying the whole disk again).
Which means you can get support for SD.

At least for straightforward clones, SD has the cleaner interface but CCC allows for more customisations. SD has a slightly better reputation but I cannot put my finger on anything that CCC has been blamed for getting wrong.

I use both but for straight cloning SD! is my choice. CCC I use sometimes when I want to customize what gets copied. One example is to clone your system without also copying all your images and other data on the same drive. That is easy with CCC where you can just exclude some folders.

I SD! has implemented it's own copy routine whereas CCC seems to rely on rsync which is a standard sync tool on most Unix/Linux distros. Very solid foundation but I've seen CCC stumble on cloning attempts where SD! had no problems but then I have also seen SD! running into disk full errors when there should clearly be space left (the master disk has plenty of free space and so should the clone have since the disks are the same size).

SD! is my preference though....

noirdesir said:

stowei said:

I've had a look at Super Duper and Carbon Copy Cloner and can't work out what the big differences are so can't decide whether it matters which one I go with.

Click to expand...

CCC is free (but accepts donations), SD is not free (at least in the version which allows you to update a clone without copying the whole disk again).
Which means you can get support for SD.

At least for straightforward clones, SD has the cleaner interface but CCC allows for more customisations. SD has a slightly better reputation but I cannot put my finger on anything that CCC has been blamed for getting wrong.

Click to expand...

--
Mikael

Many thanks both

Machine backup to take offsite periodically? It would include older, but changed or deleted files and it could still be used as a restorable backup in case of trouble. I have thought of doing this instead of cloning periodically which is why I ask.

I use CCC, its free and easy to use. I just select the source and destination and the way its setup, it basically does incremental backups as well. That is it will not re-copy data blocks that already exist on the target drive. My initial backup takes about 2 hours, and then subsequent backups about 10 -20 minutes.

I also use CCC on a portable drive so I have an offsite backup of my data.

The restore process and the fact that you can use your computer during the restore process.

When you need to restore from a clone you simply boot from the clone drive and start the cloning software and clone the clone drive back to the new drive (if the case is that you replaced it after a crash). You can of course work on your mac as the cloning happens. Just re-run the clone once more after the main clone is done (usually 2 hours or so for a laptop). This second run is incremental and will take only 20 minutes and move over the changes you made on the backup drive while the restore was happening. When that is done, just reboot from the new internal drive.

You can of course also just put the clone drive in the laptop/desktop and it will be your new main drive and go out and by a new backup drive. The restore time then is 0. No reinstall, no configuration, nothing, just continue working. That's also how I upgrade to bigger drives in my MBP. Done that twice.

With a Time Machine backup you will have to re-install Mac OS X and during the install select restore from the Time Machine drive. Now you can just sit and watch the progress bar while this happens. A friend of ine had to do that for a full day...the TM restore took more than 8 hours... (it was a MacBook so the drive wasn't huge).

I schedule my clone backups to run daily. At work it runs when I'm working to a drive in the office and at home it runs nightly to another drive. Gives me 2 copies in different locations.

Corkcampbell said:

Machine backup to take offsite periodically? It would include older, but changed or deleted files and it could still be used as a restorable backup in case of trouble. I have thought of doing this instead of cloning periodically which is why I ask.

Click to expand...

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Mikael

I have not had good luck using CCC to clone my external array--it contained a 2.5 TB Aperture Library (mainly) and I ran CCC twice, getting different errors both times.

So I tried SD. Unfortunately, it was so slow that I had to kill it; I think it would have taken 36 hours to clone the 2.5 tb array.

I use SynchronizePro X now. It did an initial clone of my 5 tb array in about 6 hours, and does incremental backups to the drive (about 6.2 tb now) in about 20 minutes.

It has never choked or errored. It's a fantastic program. But it's not free.

no text

Gordon J Smith said:

I have not had good luck using CCC to clone my external array--it contained a 2.5 TB Aperture Library (mainly) and I ran CCC twice, getting different errors both times.

So I tried SD. Unfortunately, it was so slow that I had to kill it; I think it would have taken 36 hours to clone the 2.5 tb array.

I use SynchronizePro X now. It did an initial clone of my 5 tb array in about 6 hours, and does incremental backups to the drive (about 6.2 tb now) in about 20 minutes.

It has never choked or errored. It's a fantastic program. But it's not free.

Click to expand...

I've been using Synchronize Pro X for about 4 years.... as you say, "fantastic": very, very solid, fast, industrial strength, but not free. It has a ton of options for handling exceptions or skipping files, more than I've seen with any other program.

On the free side, another one I use and like is Silverkeeper from Lacie. It does free incremental backups and can be scheduled.
http://www.lacie.com/silverkeeper/

Regards,
Peter G.

--
P. Guyton
http://www.pbase.com/corsairvelo

And, now, I even use SuperDuper to maintain an updated clone of my Drobo onto another Drobo ---- just in case, a Drobo should fail (it's not supposed to, but, I am not taking any chances --- and, besides, Drobos are cheaper now). :|

--
BRJR ....(LOL, some of us are quite satisfied as Hobbyists ..)

stowei said:

I would like to keep a clone of my hard-drive as an off-site back-up. I'm not a photo pro so there are no life-and-death issues. I've had a look at Super Duper and Carbon Copy Cloner and can't work out what the big differences are so can't decide whether it matters which one I go with. I there a thread/article that someone can point me to that explains the differences, if indeed there are any of any significance for my situation?

I run an incremental back-up to a Time Capsule using Time Machine, so the idea is to increase the insurance by keeping an off-site clone

Thanks

Click to expand...

Carbon copy cloner works very well. I always give developers a donation if I like their work - so it's not free.

I think what a prior person was referring to regarding a past problem was more a temporary halt in development rather than an operational problem.

noirdesir said:

CCC is free (but accepts donations), SD is not free (at least in the version which allows you to update a clone without copying the whole disk again).

Click to expand...

CCC is not free. It is listed on the website as shareware. When I used to use it, I sent the developer more than the $5 he was asking because the software was so good. Later I switched to SuperDuper, but the cost was so low I really don't see that either utility really costs anything given the benefits. Or put another way, if you rely on either software to save your butt, either costs so little that if you're not paying you're just being mean.

noirdesir said:

Which means you can get support for SD.

Click to expand...

CCC provides support and has a very active forum.

For what it's worth I went with Super Duper. In £sterling its nearly free anyway and my conscience would have made me pay nearly as much in a donation to CCC. The more expensive products are OTT for my simple needs

It worked great straight out of the box

Thanks for all your views

Anyone familiar with Data Backup by ProSoft Engineering? It is listed at about $60 on the PE website, but was included "free" with a MiniStack external drive I bought a year or so ago. I would like to know how it compares with the other applications mentioned here if anyone has used it. Thanks.

stowei said:

For what it's worth I went with Super Duper.

Click to expand...

You really can't lose with either utility. They used to be very different, but each started adding features to be like the other. Happy cloning!

I have been using SD to do scheduled backups and have been very happy with it. My internal drive is 60GB and my external is 320GB so I partitioned the external with one 60GB partition for the SD clone plus 2 other partitions.

I'm going to be getting a new Mac soon which will have a 500GB internal drive and I'm wondering if I can still use the external for my backups.

SD requires that the backup drive or partition be the same size as the source drive which would mean that my 320GB external drive won't be big enough even if I have less than 320GB of stuff on the internal.

Because of this, I'm thinking of going to CCC at least until I decide to replace the external, but so far I haven't been able to find out if CCC has the same "match internal to external drive" size requirements as SD.

Can anyone enlighten me?

Marion

mhc_99 said:

SD requires that the backup drive or partition be the same size as the source drive which would mean that my 320GB external drive won't be big enough even if I have less than 320GB of stuff on the internal.

Click to expand...

Are you sure about that? I am not aware of any SD restrictions about equal size for source and destination.

SD! has no restrictions on drive sizes. Just as long as your data fits you're ok. There might be a general warning that a 500GB drive might have more data than would fit on a 320GB...for most of us this is obvious;-)

mhc_99 said:

I have been using SD to do scheduled backups and have been very happy with it. My internal drive is 60GB and my external is 320GB so I partitioned the external with one 60GB partition for the SD clone plus 2 other partitions.

I'm going to be getting a new Mac soon which will have a 500GB internal drive and I'm wondering if I can still use the external for my backups.

SD requires that the backup drive or partition be the same size as the source drive which would mean that my 320GB external drive won't be big enough even if I have less than 320GB of stuff on the internal.

Because of this, I'm thinking of going to CCC at least until I decide to replace the external, but so far I haven't been able to find out if CCC has the same "match internal to external drive" size requirements as SD.

Can anyone enlighten me?

Marion

Click to expand...

--
Mikael

webfrasse said:

SD! has no restrictions on drive sizes. Just as long as your data fits you're ok. There might be a general warning that a 500GB drive might have more data than would fit on a 320GB...for most of us this is obvious;-)

Click to expand...

Exactly, I have a SD clone on a 160 GB drive and my internal (boot) drive is 320 GB.