Dear LANsharks Consulting Client,
One of the services I provide to you is advice in terms of keeping your data safe. As time passes, some things get old, and backup software is no exception.
Over the past 10+ years, I have helped many, many clients install and configure a program called “SuperDuper” to perform automatic daily/nightly clones of the data on their hard drives. I hear great stories from clients weekly about how these “clone backups” have saved their businesses, personal photo collections and great amounts of time when a hard drive dies or a machine is lost/stolen.
Part of my job is to tell you when there is a faster, safer or more intuitive way of doing something. In the case of running your clone backups, I’ve found something better. Way better.
Meet 
I won’t bore you with all the technical details of why Carbon Copy Cloner is so much better than SuperDuper, but here are a few key benefits:
- CCC is from15 to 50% faster than SuperDuper.
- CCC sports a modern and intuitive user interface.
- Error logging is MUCH improved – determining the cause and resolution of a backup problem takes less time.
- CCC doesn’t simply stop in the event of a drive error, leaving you without a backup.
- CCC copies Apple’s “Recovery Partition”. This means a clone of your hard disk is a true clone – it is no longer necessary to reinstall the operating system (a time consuming process) after a restore procedure.
- CCC supports Apple’s Notification Center for notifications of backup tasks. You no longer have to install and configure ‘Growl’ (a third party notification utility required for notifications with SuperDuper). You can even configure CCC to send you an email when a backup succeeds or fails. Yay!
- A clever feature called “SafetyNet” uses free space on your backup drive to keep old versions of your files, rather than deleting them.
- CCC will wake a sleeping computer on schedule. No more forcing your computer to stay awake 24/7/365.
These are only a few of the impressive list of features in Carbon Copy Cloner. I like it and you will too.
While SuperDuper will continue to run for the foreseeable future, I am no longer recommending it for new backup/clone installations. I’ve switched all my personal nightly clone backups over to CCC as well.
Mike and the friendly crew at Bombich Software have graciously offered a 25% discount off the regular $40 price for LANsharks Consulting clients. Contact me if you are a LANsharks client and would like a coupon code to use at checkout on their site.