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Old 07-23-2009, 12:52 AM
kapalama kapalama is offline
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Join Date: Jul 2009
Posts: 6
Needed: Time Machine and SuperDuper guidance

Needed: Time Machine tips and tricks

First, two unfortunate facts
1. The help file for SuperDuper does not mention TimeMachine once.
2. The link on the SuperDuper product page is to a blog post saying that SuperDuper is not Leopard compatible. Clearly that link is outdated.

There are some scattered mentions of Time Machine in these forums, but none of them really lays out possible scenarios and the pros and cons of each scenario.

It's also not exactly clear just how SuperDuper handles Time Machine disks. Specifically, can SuperDuper smart update my Time Machine disk? And in smart updating my disk, if that is possible, what do I need to do if that backup disk becomes the working Time Machine disk? Will Time Machine understand everything as if the original version of the Time Machine disk had not failed?

I do not even begin to think of one copy of anything as backup. Drives fail. (for me more than other people apparently). Time Machine is not backup, (not even close); it's just versioning. But I do want a backup of those versions. I think SuperDuper can smart clone my Time Machine disk to keep a fresh backup, but I don't know.

Obviously some of this confusion is the fault of Apple for letting people believe that Time Machine is a backup solution. It does not seem that anyone is backing up their Time Machine disks, seemingly because Apple has painted Time Machine as a backup solution itself, rather than a versioning system. So there is little information on the web about how to keep clones of Time Machine disks current, or if it is possible. Plenty of information on how to use Time Machine (as a versioning system) side by side with SuperDuper (as a backup system) (or CCC or Disk Utility), but no information on how to use SuperDuper (or CCC) to back up the Time Machine disk itself as a regular backup practice, or whether that is even possible.

Help.
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