Super Duper or Time Machine?

[kevhui]

I am new to Mac - just bought a Mac Mini with Boot Camp installed.

I also bought a Firewire 500GB and want to use it as a backup to Mac X and share drive for Mac X and WinXP.

1. If I want to backup (i.e. clone) my internal drive (i.e. Mac and WinXP), should I use Super Duper or Time Machine?

2. If something bad happens and I cannot even boot my Mac, how can I retore?

3. I have some ideas but not sure if this is correct
- Create 3 partitions in my Firewire drive
- 1st partition is cloned with Super Duper
- 2nd partition is used for backup files using Time Machine
- 3rd partition is FAT32 and used as common storage for Mac X and WinXP

4. For Super Duper, what is the difference between backup to a partition vs to a image file?

Thanks a lot for helping.

 

[QuarterSwede]

This is for OS X only. I'm not sure how Windows would be affected.

1. TM is automatic and therefore is more likely to keep you up-to-date.

2. If you need to restore from a TM backup, insert Leopard DVD and follow prompts. This can be very slow taking around 4-8 hours from reports. SD's backup would be a lot faster to restore. A combination of both (use TM for daily backup's, use SD for weekly/monthly backups) would be ideal if time is money to you.

3. I did exactly this when I moved from Tiger to Leopard on my PB. It worked beautifully to migrate all my apps and settings, etc. It was like getting a new interface without the headache of an upgrade. Loved it.

4. Not sure. I just did a full backup although I believe the image file is exactly that, a .dmg that would contain a copy of your entire hard drive. You'd want to use the backup option which would just copy your hard drive just like it is onto the external hard drive's partition.

 

[flopticalcube]

Use Winclone for the XP side.

 

[kevhui]

Many thanks both.

I just got the Mac mini for a week but am getting loving it

 

[kevhui]

Mmm. i just tried using S/D to clone my Mac (I used the first option), everything appeared on screen is OK, but it is not listed in the Startup Disk.

Please help!