SuperDuper! 2.0

We love great Mac software here at Surfbits. We love it because it functional, unique and attractive. One of the best back-up programs for the Mac just got a lot better and it would be a shame it we didn’t spend some time talking about it. It’s SuperDuper! Yes, I mean the program is SuperDuper! And it’s a Super Duper program too.

Enough of the bad jokes, SuperDuper! is one of the best back-up programs I’ve ever used. It’s made by a small company called Shirt-Pocket software. David Nanian introduced SuperDuper! in January of 2004, as a system checkpointing utility for the Macintosh that was designed to allow any user an extra margin of safety when installing drivers, system updates, or any other potentially destabilizing program. Since then it’s grown into a full-featured recovery program that creates fully bootable back-ups, now with a built-in scheduler.

The software costs only $27.95, but you can give SuperDuper! a try on your system for free and see if it’s the back-up program you’ve been looking for. You’ll find the software is flexible. You can make a full back-up or clone of your system, or you can duplicate your boot drive to another drive, partition, or image file. Then once you’ve made the clone, you can update the existing back-up with the latest data in just minutes with Smart Update. The Smart Update feature evaluates hundreds of thousands of files and directories in just minutes, automatically updating your clone to reflect any changes you’ve made on the original drive – including custom icons, HFS+ attributes, ownership changes and much more.

I loved the pre-configured options for backing up my system. I understood the options available, and SuperDuper! made certain that it followed all of Apples procedures, all I had to do was make my choices for back-up and click on Copy Now. Then if you just want to cover your butt before you take that new OSX update, SuperDuper! has a checkpoint system called Sandbox. It works by preserving your computer’s critical applications and files while you run on a working, bootable copy. If anything goes wrong, just reboot to the original. When you do, your current Documents, Music, Pictures, even iSync data are available. It allows me to run shell scripts before the back-up and then after it runs I can create a disk image, or I can install a package on my back-up, or run shell scripts afterwards. I finally feel comfortable with my back-up schedule and program. Give SuperDuper! a try and I think you’ll say that you found the backup program you’ve been looking for.