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carbon copy vs. super duper pros and cons?

J

j2048b

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Feb 18, 2009
815
32
Cali
So i am at the point that i wwant to make back ups of my drives, which is better SD or CCC?

what r the pros and cons of each or differences and similarities?

I have a mac min a mac pro, and possibly a mbp 13.3" comming, so i would want to set everything up to do 1 complete back up of each computer, then incremental back ups 1 a day or each week? with out having to do much!

Which is the best?

thanks!
 
I used to use CCC and moved to SuperDuper because of two reasons:

1. SuperDuper preserve ALL of the file info, CCC (at the time) did not preserve ACLs.

2. The File Synchronization, or "Smart Update" was easier to use on SuperDuper.

But that was 2 years ago - I've since moved to a total Time-Machine backup system for all of my machines.
 
Personally, I like doing complete clones, and do so on a weekly basis rotating between three HDs. I also do offsite backups.

For my backups, I use CCC. I prefer it's interface and it seemed to work better for me than SuperDuper.

YMMV.
 
miles01110 said:
By paying for Super Duper, you're able to take advantage of Shirt Pocket's excellent support. CCC is freeware, which means support may or may not be given for any issue.
Click to expand...

Having personally met Mike Bombich, he is pretty good about support.

That isn't to say SuperDuper isn't great.
 
I've tried them both and feel that SuperDuper! is easier to use. It does what I want (after buying the registered version).

Neither of them does everything. Once you get away from full "clone" backups their limitations show. I'm also a user of Chronosync and have used the command line ditto program in the past.
 
thanks for the replys everyone;

so my final question is does each copy program copy over EVERYTHING? I need it to copy over everything, then do incrementals each week! as some have posted they do.

I will look to try the free version first, and get a trial copy of super dupper, if i can to try out both!

Thanks
 
There are certain folders (such as caches) which neither program will clone, but it's not necessary since they get reconstructed as needed.
 
Both programs will probably "do what you need to do", and both will probably do that well.

Having said that, until recently I was a SuperDuper user exclusively (use it on this older g4 running 10.3.9). I tried earlier versions of CarbonCopyCloner and didn't like it.

But since I bought a couple of newer Macs running Snow Leopard, I find the new version of CCC much more "customize-able", at least to my liking. And the price is right, too. So that's why I've moved over to CCC on Snow Leopard.

I'd suggest you try both, and see which you prefer....
 
I've used both, SuperDuper! is clearly superior to me. In my opinion CarbonCopyCloner's interface was messier and I find the idea of the advertisements to be ... uh I can't really think of the right word, so "not good"

Also why would I want to have advertisements served up to me while doing an important task of making disk images and restoring them etc

I have yet to use the "restore image" feature of either program. But so far I like SuperDuper! the best, also considering it's been free for me to use so far, I don't get charged when I use the restore image option do I ?
 
miles01110 said:
By paying for Super Duper, you're able to take advantage of Shirt Pocket's excellent support. CCC is freeware, which means support may or may not be given for any issue.
Click to expand...

I've never had any problems with support with CCC and I recommend them highly. A great problem.
 
MindBrain said:
I've used both, SuperDuper! is clearly superior to me. In my opinion CarbonCopyCloner's interface was messier and I find the idea of the advertisements to be ... uh I can't really think of the right word, so "not good"

Also why would I want to have advertisements served up to me while doing an important task of making disk images and restoring them etc
Click to expand...
FWIW, you can easily disable the advertisements in CCC.
 
"FWIW, you can easily disable the advertisements in CCC."

Off-topic reply, but..... how does one do this?
 
j2048b said:
So i am at the point that i wwant to make back ups of my drives, which is better SD or CCC?
thanks!
Click to expand...

I downloaded and installed SuperDuper but I discovered a couple problems:

1. It does not seem to work well with Western Digital "MyBook" external hard drives. There is a note in the SuperDuper support forums I found after I started having trouble. I have 8 WD MyBooks and am reluctant to change now.

2. If you have a failed backup, without warning SuperDuper finishes the backup to your startup disk until your startup disk is 100% full. Worst of all these files are hidden and it took me almost an hour to figure it out and find them to make my system operable again.

I am not an expert nor am I a novice. I wish I had known both of these issues before I bought SuperDuper so I am just passing them along to you guys.

Comedy Guy
 
Comedy Guy said:
1. It does not seem to work well with Western Digital "MyBook" external hard drives. There is a note in the SuperDuper support forums I found after I started having trouble. I have 8 WD MyBooks and am reluctant to change now.
Click to expand...

I've got several brands of drives, including a WD MyBook and they all work with SuperDuper. So I went to the SuperDuper support forum. The thread about recommended drives states that the MyBook won't boot a Power PC Mac (but will an Intel Mac), and that Shirt Pocket Software doesn't recommend them anyway because of reliability problems. However other people report they work fine and one thread addresses CCC not being able to start a sleeping MyBook while SD will (and so he switched to SD from CCC).
2. If you have a failed backup, without warning SuperDuper finishes the backup to your startup disk until your startup disk is 100% full. Worst of all these files are hidden and it took me almost an hour to figure it out and find them to make my system operable again.
Click to expand...

I'm confused by this. Are you saying that when a backup fails, SuperDuper continues to transfer files (perhaps arbitrary files) filling up the destination drive. In other words, more files than were on the source drive? And where did it put these files?
 
external to external?

Does anyone know if either SD or CCC work for backing up an EXTERNAL HD to ANOTHER EXTERNAL HD? IF not any other suggestions? Also - need same for offsite backup (External HD to Offsite/online backup service) Thanks.
 
danastar said:
Does anyone know if either SD or CCC work for backing up an EXTERNAL HD to ANOTHER EXTERNAL HD? IF not any other suggestions?
Click to expand...

I know that SD will back up an external to another external. I do that all the time. I expect CCC would do this as well.

Can't help with offsite back up of externals. That may require an enterprise level (read -- "expensive") service.
 
ok so 1 question:

if i use either program as a back up, does it create an image of the entire drive i am backing up onto the other drive, and use up the whole back up drive?

thanks
 
j2048b said:
SuperDuper does not do incremental backups. Unless I've missed an update. It does a smart backup, where it just makes changes and backs up what changed that week (or however often you set it). But it will delete what is no longer on your drive. It's just quicker than a full backup.

What I would do, if I were you, is get a large hard drive. Clone it with SuperDuper, then use Time Machine as your incremental backup on the same drive (SD will co-exist nicely with TM backups).
Click to expand...
 
j2048b said:
ok so 1 question:

if i use either program as a back up, does it create an image of the entire drive i am backing up onto the other drive, and use up the whole back up drive?

thanks
Click to expand...

First, these programs copy one disk partition to another. The backup drive can have more than one partition, so it can be used to back up more than one drive or be used for other uses as well as back ups.

It copies all of the files over. It's not correct to call it an image backup because the drives don't have to be the same size. You can consider though that it does use the entire back up drive because you can't put anything else on it -- additional files will be deleted with the next back up operation.

The previous poster suggested having a TimeMachine backup and a CCC or SD backup on the same drive, using partitions. I'd suggest NOT doing this. TimeMachine is designed have the drive connected all the time so that the incremental backups can be performed frequently (like every hour). The CCC or SD backup should be to a drive that is disconnected and saved off-site, thus giving protection against theft, fire, or natural disaster.
 
talmy said:
The previous poster suggested having a TimeMachine backup and a CCC or SD backup on the same drive, using partitions. I'd suggest NOT doing this. TimeMachine is designed have the drive connected all the time so that the incremental backups can be performed frequently (like every hour). The CCC or SD backup should be to a drive that is disconnected and saved off-site, thus giving protection against theft, fire, or natural disaster.
Click to expand...

Well, that depends on the purpose of the clone backup. If you want offsite storage with it, then yes, it needs to be separate from TM. If, however, you just want a bootable backup, it can be on the same drive. That's what I do, and I use an online backup for my offsite. But everyone has their own preference on that end.

One correction, though. I do NOT recommend putting the Time Machine backup on one partition and the SuperDuper clone on another partition. Put them on the same partition. That's the most efficient way.
 
ok so are the 2 programs cc and sd, only used for back ups for your start up drives, or could i use one of them for say a hard drive i have pictures and or movies on?

thanks
 
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