SuperDuper: Backup of the Gods

Maybe it's experience, maybe it's wisdom, maybe old age but I'm absolutely obsessed with backups. Part of it comes from a bad experience with data loss many years ago (sounds like Tequila, doesn't it?), part of it comes from recovering friends data over the years and another part of it comes from using a notebook computer exclusively for so many years.

When you use a notebook as your primary computer as I do, your data is always in jeopardy. A notebook computer can be lost, stolen or damaged at any time and having a reliable backup routine is imperative-not optional.

I take backup to an art form. I have a 3TB RAID at home for historical data, I use a 3.5-inch desktop drive and a portable 2.5-inch hard drive for weekly clones and I rotate various versions of these drives to off site locations to protect against acts of God.

My backup software of choice has been Shirt Pocket Software's SuperDuper ($28) for a couple of years. It's simple, intuitive and its Smart Update feature is super fast and makes backing up completely painless.

When Apple introduced Leopard it created all kinds of problems for SuperDuper users. Time Machine wants to be your only backup solution and SuperDuper backups couldn't exist on the same external hard drive. You can read all the details on the Shirt Pocket Watch blog.

Well, good news for SuperDuper users, Shirt Pocket today released version 2.5 which plays nicely with Time Machine external hard drives. The download is available from the SuperDuper Web site (or in "Check for update.." for current user). The press release is available on the Shirt Pocket Watch blog.

SuperDuper is an A1 O'Grady software pick that I've been recommending for years and it should be in every Mac user's arsenal.

What do you use for backing up?