Super Duper clone vs Time Machine when major HD issues

PJM said:

I am using Time Machine. I also clone my HD using Super Duper on weekly basis. In case of having a major problem with my HD, I am not sure what approach to follow.

1.- If I restore my HD using my super duper clone, can I continue using my Time Machine ext. HD?. Time Machine will have some files that are newer that the ones in the super duper clone, how would Time Machine handle this scenario?

2.- If I restore using Time Machine, that would imply that I do not need to use super duper at all.

What do you think? What would you do? Am I missing something?

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No, but I might be. 😱

I would think 2.- is the only solution you need.

Are you hanging on to Super Duper from previous Apple OS's??

I'm not an expert in this area, but I'd suggest you use time machine for your regular backups, and then do a superduper backup to store off site and off magnetic media because it's a fully self contained portable backup image.

PJM said:

Yes, I have been using Super Duper for about a year. However, I am not sure if it makes sense to use it in combination with Time Machine. It is probably too much.

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I do the same exact thing you do. I use Time Machine which does hourly backups, and I also use Carbon Copy Cloner to create a disk image every week (actually, I do incremental backups to just "add" to the last backup, but anyway...)

I like Time Machine for grabbing files/folders I might have cleaned out earlier. I like my CCC backups in case of a catastrophic failure.

I just feel that copying a disk image is more comprehensive than "restoring to a certain time." I have tried a TM restoration before. The process was simple, and my settings were all exactly as I had had them before with two very minor exceptions: some Mail settings had to be reset, and iTunes had to be reactivated. Well ok, there was one other major problem: Time Machine had to be started all over again. There is a tweaking process you can do to get it to start backing up again where you left off, but I didn't know it back then. And I think it's dumb that you have to do that.

I actually haven't tried a disk image restoration with Leopard, but in Tiger it was absolutely flawless. There were no differences between the old install and the new copy. I can't comment on Time Machine, though, obviously.

the thing about time machine is after an HDD failure, when you get a new HDD you can only back up from the most recent TM backup, and you cannot access any of your old backups. This is something that I think needs to be addressed with TM as I think it is a flaw...