Time Machine Vs SuperDuper!

[macWish]

Update from Apple Development Connection on Repair Permissions Bug in Leopard:

"Thank you for contacting us regarding the status of Bug ID# 5603577, the original of your duplicate Bug ID# 5637099.

At this time, there isn't any new information available for this issue. I have checked with engineering, and the issue is still being investigated.

We will do our best to keep you informed as new information becomes available. Please be sure to regularly check the release notes for potential or related fixes that might affect this issue.

We sincerely appreciate your patience and thank you for your support."

[justflybob]

And people here and on the blog actually bust Dave N.'s chops for not posting daily updates?

Give me a break! If Apple, with teams of sw engineers pouring over this same material, cannot figure out an annoying permissions problem, just how the heck is Dave supposed to unravel another bug when Apple itself throws his team a curve ball with the API?

Also, I'm an admitted conspiracy junkie (currently in rehab), but knowing how often I got thrown under the bus at the last minute on Apple hw releases? It makes me wonder if somewhere in the bowels of Apple, someone decided to through Dave a curve on the 10.5 release, with no other purpose than to slow him down so they could launch Time Capsule. Apple has always shown a bit of disdain for cloning drives, as they figure people will steal the OS and not pay for their own copy.

An ugly thought, but a thought none-the-less...

[dnanian]

Apple wouldn't do that, justflybob: no way, no how.

[soulatrium]

Getting back on topic, I saw the following article:

http://www.macobserver.com/article/2008/01/28.15.shtml

This proves, essentially, that cloning (or at least the practical results of cloning) is a function of Time Machine. People can easily restore a clone by running the system disk and selecting the appropriate option.

the only consistent downsides seem to be that it's a slow process, and that restoring a TM backup makes it so that you have to restart the whole TM process with your restored back (I'm wondering if that's something that would be fixed in a future OS update though).

Essentially, it looks like the value of SuperDuper has been vastly reduced because of this feature of time machine...and with the obvious inability of Shirt-Pocket to come out with timely product updates (no matter what the reason....every other major backup solution is now Leopard compatible!) I'm considering getting rid of SD for good.

[dnanian]

As I've explained in detail in the "Time's Arrow" posts on the blog, yes, you can do a full restore with Time Machine. But that's not its strength, and wasn't intended to be.

As far as our "obvious inability to come out with timely product updates" goes -- I think our record of 5 years or so of timely product updates disproves that quite, well, obviously.

Doing Leopard support properly required extensive internal and external testing, and some rework to ensure proper operation on all systems in cases that came up during that testing. This can, and did, take more time than we'd hoped, but one "longer than expected" update out of a rather large number of others does not comprise a trend.

[soulatrium]

Ok, well I'll give you the point for historically being good about updates. This is the first time I've noticed SD "late" for a product update.

I hold to my opinion that for the user who wants a program that can clone their drive but who has a copy of the system cd AND who can afford to let the restore run all night (two big "ifs," admittedly) time machine is at least as good a backup system as SD.

Ideally, one would want to use both because, as pointed out in the blog, they're ultimately made for slightly different purposes. The only issue with this (and maybe this is solved in the forthcoming SD update) is that while SD makes a clone, if TM is also running, then TM will make an additional clone (or at least take up as much space as a clone) before it starts doing incremental backups. This leads to a lot more space used when both programs are used in combination than if someone were to use TM only and rely on TM for emergency restoring of the hard disk.

Feel free to correct me on anything. Sorry if my previous post came off as harsh, I'm just trying to draw contrasts so I can truly understand the best way to use these programs.

[dnanian]

Time Machine is clearly a good, albeit new, backup system. I'm not going to declare otherwise, and haven't.

Full system recovery isn't its strong suit, though, and the case it's optimized for -- individual file recovery, etc -- is, to my mind, a rare occurrence. But, when it happens, it's great to have TM there.

But, if your disk dies and you need to work from another Mac in your house, or a loaner, you can do so right from the SD! copy. You can't do that from a TM backup: it must be restored to be useful. And full recovery is fast and painless.

Disk space, these days, is cheap, with good 500GB drives going for $100 or so. There's little reason not to get the space you need to do both a SD! copy and a TM copy.