High Sierra
 

Hi Dave,

I know you have a policy of not providing much information about upcoming releases. I'm slow having asked similar questions for the past 10 years, but I'm not completely incapable of learning :-)

Thus, I will ask a more general questions.

Have you explored the new file structure (APFS) at all and do you see anything insurmountable resulting from it being part of High Sierra.

Ok...maybe am I am incapable of learning because I'll go ahead and ask...how is your comfort level of SD! being ready to go or still functioning with 10.13?

:-P

Work is in progress on support APFS. 10.13 is not out yet, not finished (even APFS isn't finished), so asking about whether we're "ready to go" is premature. 10.13 isn't ready to go itself!

High Sierra beta user
 

Attempted to use SuperDuper today, but it can't seem to see/find my "Macintosh HD" (which does appear as usual on the desktop). Can I no longer use SuperDuper? Thanks!

We do not yet support APFS... if you want to use SUperDuper! with High Sierra at this point of the beta, continue to use HFS+.

?
 

Not sure how to do that.

When you install, there's a checkbox that lets you not convert to APFS...

Oops! (Too late for that.) When do you anticipate an update for SuperDuper? Thanks!

When the work is done...and not a moment before :)

I see others are thinking about the same questions. I've been hearing mixed reports about APFS, but as pointed out it's not yet finished. I gather it will save a lot of drive space and also make file copying lightning fast, so in theory daily backups with SuperDuper! might be complete in a matter of seconds.

One area I'm unsure about is how the new format will behave on SATA drives, since I gather it's being aimed primarily at SSD.

No, Ashley: It doesn't make file copying lightning fast (and it is primarily designed for flash media). It makes certain types of copies (that is, copies of files on the same drive) fast at the time of copying, since it doesn't copy - it references. But when you then change the file, the copy is *really* done.

Normal copies, to separate drives, are not lightning fast, and will never be: the data has to actually be copied.

exactly... I think this is the biggest misunderstanding about APFS !

I've also read this new format is less prone to file corruption. Hopefully something here is true!

In general, I would suggest that a brand new file system, even when tested, is going to be much much riskier than one with the years of refinement HFS+ has.

By that I don't mean to suggest HFS+ is perfect. Just that APFS isn't going to be mature for a while, and I'd probably leave it to the "pioneers" (the ones with the arrows in them) to work with it for a while...

Follow-up:
 

FWIW: I see that Carbon Copy Cloner now supports the new system.

As does Time Machine, of course. We're working on it. But my advice remains the same: in general, unless you need to move to High Sierra, I'd let others find the first-few-versions' bugs.

As you've likely seen, if you have an SSD, it's going to get converted to APFS. You won't have a choice. I'm sure Apple has a lot of confidence in the new file system, and it's likely quite good, but it's going to break things (for example, Disk Warrior, low-level file system tools, etc) and there just isn't any rush for most users to install it.

Don't get caught up in the "NEW!" excitement. Relax. Have a beverage. Breathe. Read about others' trials and tribulations, confident that your Mac is going to work just like it works now, there's nothing must-have in High Sierra, and waiting a little while means you'll be in a better position when 10.13.1/.2/.3 makes their inevitable appearance.

So true!
 

That's the best advice one could give about a new OS, especially when it comes with a new FS!
I'll most probably be waiting for 10.14 before I switch to 10.13...
Unless I buy a new mac which would not let me that choice.

I'll have more on this as soon as I get the blog post I'm working on done...

The blog post is up now... and, v2.9.2 is out as well.

Update appreciated and installed, but...
 

The error message is still the same as before: SuperDuper! cannot find source volume "Macintosh HD".

Am I doing something wrong? (I restarted the iMac, but no change.)

Is it APFS? Sounds like it is, and if you read the post at http://www.shirt-pocket.com/blog, you'll see we don't yet support APFS, along with some discussion.

Sorry, I hadn't (yet) seen the blog post -- just thought v2.9.2 might do APFS, which was done automatically as part of the High Sierra beta.

New blog post at http://www.shirt-pocket.com/blog with a beta of v3.0, with APFS support...

HFS+ Cloning with High Sierra
 

Dave, both my internal drive and external drive (USB 3 connected) are HFS+ volumes. My internal is now updated to High Sierra, and works well. Am I able to run a bootable backup clone to the external Sierra drive, or do I need to boot into the external, install High Sierra there, and then, boot back into the internal and run the normal SD cloning to end up with the bootable external?

Just wanting to take the minimum steps.

No, you can copy to it from High Sierra (HFS+->HFS+).

So, I will back up from internal High Sierra to external Sierra, and when done the external will be updated to bootable High Sierra. If so, I am good.

Yes, you can do that.

3.0b1
 

Hello,

I have just downloaded the 3.0b1, and finally was able to register it (bought superduper I dunno how many years ago).

However I had not yet used superduper at all on many iterations of the High Sierra betas and GM candidate. When I launched the 3.0b1 (sure wish I didn't have to use the usual to open it, e.g. control-cmd open) and tried to register using the Register menu item, there was no place for the name and serial number.

After relaunching a couple of times with no success, I downloaded the 2.9.2 version, registered that and then the registration showed up in the 3.0b1.

I dunno, but I think this might be a bug to fix.

best regards,
Philip Noguchi:):)

That's weird - I just opened, and selected "Register..." and my window opened fully and showed my serial and name + the buttons. Does it still reproduce for you?

High Sierra backup
 

iMac Retina 5K, 27" Late 2014

I installed High Sierra on my internal drive, which is SSD, so the installation automatically changed it to APFS. I installed SuperDuper 3.0 B1 and tried cloning to an external USB3 drive and an external SSD, both HFS+. Smart copy would not work. Erase and then copy did work, but SuperDuper could not make either drive bootable.

But the process did convert the external drives to APFS.

To make the external SSD bootable, I installed High Sierra on it and that worked, retaining the cloned files. Too hard for routine backup though.

Is this what you expected from 3.0 B1?

We know of a problem copying APFS->HFS+ (it tries to bless Preboot and fails), but if you just format as APFS it should copy with Smart Update and boot fine. It does here...

I guess format APFS will erase the disk, but if it works it's worth it. I'll try.
Thanks.

It worked. Didn't need to reformat external SSD since High Sierra install took care of that. But Smart Update worked and made it bootable. It was pretty slow on the last few steps, but it worked.

Thanks!

Glad to hear it worked as expected.

3.0b1
 

I bet you already had a registered version present on the drive, which means that you already had a registration number present on the boot drive. When I started a virgin copy of 3.0B1, the Register command gave the text about buying or entering a name and serial number, but there were no boxes present. It was only after I registered 2.9.2 that the boxes appeared already filled in.

It's a difficult bug to see, because you need a computer with High Sierra that has never had SuperDuper! present or registered. It is only with an unregistered 3.0b1 that this "bug" appears.

Interesting…

My SSD bootdrive (0) with 10.13 has - obviously - AFPS.
My external drive is partitioned in a SuperDuper clone drive (1) and a Time Machine drive (2).On 1 is still 10.12.

Now on (0) with 10.13 Disk Utility I can only convert drive (2) to APFS. With (1) the option is greyed out.

I also noticed that copying files with APFS is blindingly fast.. GB in a sec...

You might want to read my blog post at http://www.shirt-pocket.com/blog (specifically, http://www.shirt-pocket.com/news_on_the_march) for a comment about copying, which isn't really faster.

To use a drive with both HFS+ and APFS, create a partition for the APFS container and then make that APFS. You can create as many volumes as you want in the container - they all share the same pool of space. You'll then want to back up to a volume in that container.

Follow-up question:
 

Do you mean to reformat the backup partition as APFS first, and then to run SuperDuper 3.0 B1 with Smart Update? Thanks!

That's what I mean.

Hi Dave,

Perhaps I was not clear, but I have an external drive partitioned in two parts.

One as SD clone partition and the other for Time Machine.

I upgraded to 10.13 so my internal SSD drive is now APFS. The external drive is still Mac OS Extended (Journaled).

If I open Disk Utility I can only convert the Time Machine partition to APFS and NOT the SD clone partition.

I that because the SD clone partition has 10.12 installed (which does not require APFS). So the only solution is to erase the SD clone partition and then used SD... For Time Machine it seems not of any importance if the partition is APFS ?

Thanks :)

Right, so you have to delete that partition, and then create one for the APFS container. Or format the whole drive for APFS. It's up to you.

Note, though: Time Machine grows and takes over the entire space given. If you have a shared pool of storage and don't set a quota, Time Machine will eat the entire drive.