Developer: Shirt Pocket
The download version of SuperDuper! Para Mac is 3.3.1. The package you are about to download is authentic and was not repacked or modified in any way by us. Is a light, yet powerful and user-oriented macOS application specially designed to help you create a bootable backup alongside your Time Machine volume. Nov 04, 2009 Download SuperDuper for Mac to backup, clone, and restore your information. SuperDuper has had 2 updates within the past 6 months. Once you have installed SuperDuper!, double click on app icon. If it is not selected already, select the hard drive of your MAC in the pop-up menu residing next to the Copy. Select the hard drive used as target in the “to” popup menu. You need to make sure that using popup menu reads “Backup-all files”. Click the Copy Now button. SuperDuper alternatives like Free Mac Data Recovery, Mac Free Any Data Recovery, Clonezilla, and Mac Data Recovery also offer similar features. What does SuperDuper do? SuperDuper is a beginner-friendly disk copying program that you can download on your macOS computer.
Price: $28
Requirements: Mac OS X 10.3.9. Universal.
Trial: Feature-limited (missing Smart Update, etc.)
Once upon a time, there was a tape backup drive. It held a fewgigabytes per tape and connected via FireWire. It was a great littletape drive, and it came with backup software called Retrospect. Retrospectwas greatly respected within the Macintosh backup community, and itintegrated the aforementioned tape backup drive nicely.
At the same time the tape backup drive began to show its age in theamount of data it could store, Retrospect began its slide intounreliable oblivion, at least for this user. The tape backup drive isnow on a shelf, and Retrospect no longer resides on the hard drive as ameans of backup administration. This user has spent the past couple ofyears with an imperfect and just as unreliable backup system: wheneverI think about it.
After a bad crash that lost me a month’s worth of e-mail, I began tothink about it a lot more often. You’ll note this is when most peopletend to think about backing up their data: after they’ve already lostsome or all of it. Many have said it before me, and many will continueto say it after me: setting up a backup system that works for you isnot something you should put off for another day.
As for me, most of the time I would simply copy data to an externaldrive. Other times, I would perform a full cloning of the drive inquestion to an external one. I’ve looked at and used off and on numerousbackup and syncing utilities, and just hadn’t found one I felt I couldcount on for all of my backup needs. I may have finally found thatutility in Dave Nanian’s SuperDuper.
Full Backup
From the outset, the philosophy behind SuperDuper was that it be aseasy as possible for the new user, while not skimping on features ofworth to the power user. To this end, the main interface for theapplication is very basic, while still allowing access to advancedfeatures.
As you can see in the above screen shot, it’s a very simple interface. Itasks you to choose what you are copying, and where you are copying itto. SuperDuper comes with four default backup scripts, but you canchoose to create as many as your needs dictate.
I created my own backup script to fill my most pressing backup need:seeing that my new iMac Core Duo’s hard drive is cloned. I ordered mynew iMac with the upgraded hard drive, which weighs in at 500 GB. Nothaving any external drives that even come close to 500 GB, I ordered anexternal of that capacity from LaCie. OnceVolumnius arrived, it was time to give SuperDuper its first workout.The aforementioned backup script was very simple: back up everything.I will note that one of the four default scripts in SuperDuper is“Backup—all files,” so one could make the argument that I wasreinventing the wheel with my own script that does the same thing.Rather, I thought it important to look into the script creationprocess, which we’ll get to later.
A quick aside on the other three default scripts: one is “Backup—userfiles,” which backs up just the files in the current user’ home folder. Theother two are related to what Shirt Pocket calls the Sandbox, whichwe’ll discuss later.
After selecting your script, you’ll need to set your options for thisparticular backup. As you can see from the screenshot below, you canhave SuperDuper repair your drive’s permissions (I recommend this),tell it what to do to the target drive and what sort of backupyou’re looking to perform, and then you can have SuperDuperperform several actions after the backup is complete. These range fromdoing nothing, the default, to restarting from the target drive orshutting down your computer.
So, a little under two hours later, the entire contents of my iMac’sdisk was copied to the external drive. Not only that, but SuperDuperhad also made the external drive bootable, just in case the need arose toboot from it to restore to the iMac.
“So what?” you may ask. There are other utilities that do that, some ofwhich are free or donationware. True, but then we haven’t tapped all ofSuperDuper’s power yet.
Increment Me, Schedule Me, Just Don’t Bore Me
After performing the initial backup, the next step is to useSuperDuper’s Smart Update feature to incrementally back up the iMac.Only those files that have been changed will be updated on theexternal drive.
To do this, simply select “Smart Update [target drive] from[original drive]” in the During copy options, as shown above in thesecond graphic. This won’t take nearly as long as the original fullbackup; when I ran my first Smart Update, a couple of days after thefirst Full Backup, it took just under 15 minutes.
This is all well and good, you might say, except that I still have totell the system to do all of this. Can’t I just schedule a backup andforget about it? Yes, dear reader, you can do precisely that.
You may also be thinking that things have been pretty easy up to thispoint, right? So the whole scheduling thing must be the part wherewe’ll have to slog through. Not so. Scheduling your backups withSuperDuper is as easy as everything else.
Going back to the main screen, you’ll note the Schedule button.Clicking on this will allow you to set up the dates and times for yourscheduled backup.
As you can see, I’ve set up a daily incremental backup that kicks offat 1:00 in the morning each day of the week. I’m a night owl, but by andlarge I’m done on the computer between midnight and 12:30, so1:00 is a safe bet for me. Only those changes made to the iMac, whetherthey be modifications, additions, or deletions, will be made to theexternal drive.
You have lots of options in your scheduling. You may want to do a fullbackup once a week, and Smart Updates the rest of the week. Or a fullbackup once a month, etc. SuperDuper gives you the flexibility you wantin determining what sort of backups will take place when.
Another nice feature of SuperDuper is that the application does nothave to be running to begin a scheduled backup. According to the PDFmanual, theonly requirements are that the user who created the scheduled backupbe logged in, and that the screen be unlocked. Your Mac must also not beasleep; SuperDuper won’t wake it up.
Please, Dear God, Let Me Have That File Backed Up
Superduper Mac Download
So in a sleep-deprived stupor, you killed the company’s latestfinancials spreadsheet, or your doctoral thesis. Or a lightning stormknocked out the power, and The Great American Novel you were working onhappens to be the only file missing from your hard drive. Fear not, forif you have been persistent and consistent in your backups, it’s reallyeasy to get those files back. Or at least the most recently backed upversion, which will still save you a lot of recreation time.Unfortunately, if another full backup or Smart Update runs before younotice that your file has been deleted or corrupted, you won’t be ableto recover it from the backup at all.
Fire up your external drive, navigate to where the files arelocated—somewhere in your home folder, no doubt—and drag them over.That’s it. SuperDuper performs a file-for-file, folder-for-foldercloning when it backs up. This approach can have its weaknesses, asopposed to a proprietary backup format such as what Retrospect uses.For example, the backups take more disk space, and you can’t tellwhether the files they contain are intact. But for a majority of usersout there looking for easy backup and recovery, Shirt Pocket’s methodworks great. The above-mentioned, easy-to-read manual also discussesrestoring from a bootable backup, as well as restoring when you areunable to boot from your backup.
Playing in the Sandbox
The SuperDuper Sandbox is designed to give you a bootable copy of yoursystem, sharing your user files from the original drive. The differenceis that you can use the Sandbox to experiment. See some new haxie orkernel hack you want to try, but are afraid of how it might affect yourcritical apps? Leery of the latest system update, because you’rerunning some legacy or third-party-upgraded hardware? Install them onthe Sandbox. If it blows up, your original is still intact, safe andsound.
In the OS 9 and earlier days, I lived on the bleeding edge, installingwhatever came down the pipe to play around with. With OS X, I’ve becomemuch more cautious. You won’t find any—OK, you won’t findmany—hacks or haxies installed on my systems. The Sandbox could verywell change that, as soon as I get some more external drives intooperation.
This feature can be a boon to administrators who may want to test a newupdate or system configuration, but who may be limited in having extrahardware to test on. With SuperDuper’s Sandbox, you don’t need an extraMac, just an extra hard drive.
It’s noted in the SuperDuper manual, and worth repeating here: theSandbox is not designed as a replacement for the regular backupfeatures of SuperDuper. It is offered as an additional feature. TheSandbox is, as its name implies, for playing around, not for seriousbackup duties.
The only caveat I see in using the Sandbox is that some software mayinstall something in the Library folder that resides in your userfolder, and this could potentially cause problems when you switchedback to your original drive.
Miscellany
SuperDuper can back up to a network volume. Kind of. It cannot write toa network volume directly, but you can use the application to create adisk image that contains your files, and SuperDuper will save thatimage to the network volume. I do not have access to any network drivesof the size that even my smallest backup sets would be able to handle,so I am unable to test this feature. This could be a feature systemsadministrators not anxious to dive in to the command-line world ofrsync would welcome.
Using the Copy Scripts function, you can tell SuperDuper which files orfolders you want it to ignore during the backup process. For mostusers, this won’t be something you’ll care too much about; you’ll wantto backup everything. I fall in to that camp. Advanced users orsystems administrators may have valid reasons for ignoring certainfiles or folders, and again, the application is flexible in this regard.
SuperDuper Is, Well, Super
Diehard Retrospect fans won’t be converting to SuperDuper. Neither willsystems administrators with heavy command-line backgrounds, or thoserequiring industrial-strength solutions for industrial-size…er,industries. Then again, SuperDuper isn’t designed for those sorts offolks. It’s designed for the everyday Mac user who just wants to makesure the digital photos of Junior’s first Little League game are backedup. It’s designed for the small business owner who needs a decentbackup solution that she doesn’t have to think much about.
The Macintosh was designed to be “the computer for the rest of us,” andDave Nanian and company began with the goal to make SuperDuper thebackup solution “for the rest of us.” I believe they have succeeded.
Superduper For Mac Download
Copyright © 2006 Christopher Turner, cturner@atpm.com. Reviewing inATPM is open to anyone. If you’re interested, write to us atreviews@atpm.com.