Cloned hard drive not an exact copy

[alansky]

I've used SuperDuper for years to create bootable clones of my startup drive without a problem. But I recently used "smart update" to clone an external drive full of media files to a backup drive of the same files that I had been backing up manually since the original clone was made. To my surprise, when the cloning process was finished, the size and contents of the target disk did not exactly match the source disk. Can anyone explain what might have gone wrong? It is my understanding that a clone should be an exact copy of the source disk.

Thanks!

[dnanian]

I'd really need to see the log from the run - please send it to support using the "Send to shirt pocket" button. Use "Error during copy" as the issue type so the log gets attached. Thanks.

[alansky]

Unfortunately, SuperDuper has performed a smart update of my startup drive since the cloning attempt I inquired about. The log file appears to contain information for only the most recent clone.

Since I manually made the contents of the two external media drives identical since the clone was made, I did not expect another smart update to result in a discrepancy between source and target drives. I performed another smart update anyway, and the two drives are identical after the update— as they were before the update in this case.

So I guess there's no way to follow up on this issue unless it happens again. In that event, I will send the log file before using SuperDuper for any other purpose.

Thanks!