should I use "copy newer" or "smart backup"?

[susieq]

I’m a newbie who purchased Super Duper in order to back up one external disk drive onto another one. I’m doing a full-length documentary film and have two external drives (one firewire and the other usb2) of 1TB each. I run Final Cut Pro on my Mac HD, but store all media, project files, etc. on one of the external drives. I want to use the second external drive purely for backup, so I made the firewire drive the source and the usb the destination drive. I selected the “copy newer” option because I was afraid that if I chose the “smart backup” option, and for some reason, a file got deleted from my source drive, Super Duper would delete the accidentally deleted file from the destination drive during the next backup, thus negating any advantages of backing up my files onto the second drive.

Is this a correct assumption?

If so, the problem is this: I had many of the same files on both drives when I started my backup this afternoon, so I figured that SD would only have to back up a few files that might have been newer on the source drive than on the destination drive. I also figured that the destination drive would end up with basically the same amount of disk space available as the source drive, as the files were pretty much the same.

It’s been 3 hours now and the program is still copying. Not only that, but it seems to have copied about 100GB of files onto the destination drive more than what is currently on the source drive. Can anybody explain what’s happening here? Should I have chosen “smart backup” instead of “copy newer”? And will it take another 3 hours for the next backup, or is this just a one-time thing?

Thanks

[dnanian]

In general, you should use Smart Update -- although, yes -- if you delete a file, empty your trash and then do a backup, it will remove that file from the backup.

As I try to explain in the Introduction to the User's Guide, one good way of handling that is to rotate two or more backups, so you'll have a daily, a weekly and a monthly.

Anyway, as far as the other issue goes, it's hard to say. Were you running FinalCut/editing while you were copying?

[susieq]

Thanks, Dave. I discovered the answers to my questions a couple of minutes later, after the copy was completed. I do need "copy newer," as I sometimes accidentally delete files from FCP in an attempt to "clean up" render files, etc. and I want the deleted file available to me on the second drive. I also have a few files on the second drive that aren't on the first, and I don't want them deleted. Much to my pleasant surprise, though, once the initial 3-hour copy was finished, I find that it takes less than a minute to do another backup.

I have one more question, though: Isn't there a way to schedule an automatic backup every time I log into my account for the day, rather than at certain times of the day? I can never be sure what time I will log in, and I don't want my computer to wake up for a backup.

Thanks, and sorry about the double posting. I had no idea I'd done that until I saw both of them there, and I did:)n't know how to delete the extra one.

Susieq

[dnanian]

Well... you could follow the general steps in the "One Touch Button" FAQ entry (Help > Frequently Asked Questions), and then add the little program to your Startup/Login Items, rather than configuring a button to do it...