Super Duper vs Carbon Copy Cloner. Which do you like better and why?

I've found less errors lately with Carbon Copy Cloner on Lion than with Snow Leopard. Though with Snow Leopard Superduper has worked quite well. If you run into errors, always try the other. Note the configuration options are different in each as to which will do an exact clone, and which will do archiving together with cloning of information that differs at the destination.

I've used SuperDuper! for the last 2-3 years and it works just as you would hope. Never had a problem.

I've also just bought the Mountain Lion ready version of Carbon Copy Cloner and I'm impressed. I think the interface is more user-friendly and it seems like it makes a full back-up faster than SD. Haven't actually timed it, but that's how it feels.

Carbon Copy Cloner will also allow you to make a back-up of your Recovery HD (if you are on Lion or Mountain Lion) which I don't believe SD does. If I had to pick just one I'd go with CCC.

I actually have and use both (no real reason - I initially just wanted to try both when they were new and just kept on using them). Either one will work fine and have never failed me. I like SuperDuper's scheduling for incremental updates to the clone better than CCC's, but that is about the only substantial difference to me.

Initially, when Lion came out with the recovery partition, there was an issue with SuperDuper, but the update was pretty prompt to deal with that. I seem to remeber CCC had an update just before the public release of Lion, so Mike B. was a bit ahead on that.

I have SuperDuper set up to clone to a partition on the same drive I keep my TM backup on, and it is scheduled to update that clone once a week. I also keep two portable, bus-powered hard drives for clones (one CCC the other SuperDuper - one offsite, and one kept in home firesafe). They've all been fine and that has been my backup strategy for several years now.

Since you can try both for free, check them out and see which one is to your taste - you really cannot go wrong with either.

The most important difference is that CCC, being a wrapper for rsync, can work over a network, while SD can't.

I often hear persons say that they backup once a week or even once a month. For goodness sakes a log can happen in a day compared to a week, heaven forbid a month! I am a long time user of SuperDuper! and run multiple backups every night, two to attached hard drives and one wirelessly to my Time Capsule. This is in addition to my Time Machine backups which also go to my Time Capsule. The reason for the two backups to attached hard drives is that one of those drives is then exchanged with one offsite. The cost of this backup procedure is minimal and does indeed provide a good degree of protection in case of a failure on my computer.

Shouldn't need to do anything. SD or CCC should re-format the drive for you when you do your first clone.

I prefer CCC, but I'm biased, since I moderated their forums for over six years. Current CCC can restore the hidden, virtual Recovery HD, can clone over a network, and IMO, is simpler to use; although I've not run SD! for over three years. Do note that CCC is now a commercial product, costs $39.95 USD.

I've had better luck with CCC.

Cumby wrote:

Looking at adding one of this with an offsite portable back up hard drive. Just wanting some opinions on which to go with, benefits, drawbacks etc..

CCC, but SuperDuper is also a good product, I just prefer CCC for its network abilities and the fact that it can clone the Recovery partition as well.

I've tried both and they seem to be fine but I thought that with one of them if you do a full restore (In other words, restore to a new SSD/HD) you would not have to re-enter all your serial/activation keys. While that's not a big deal with apps purchased through teh app store, it can be a pain with purchases made direct through developer's websites.

Does anyone have any insight into this?

RocknBlogger wrote:

I've tried both and they seem to be fine but I thought that with one of them if you do a full restore (In other words, restore to a new SSD/HD) you would not have to re-enter all your serial/activation keys. While that's not a big deal with apps purchased through teh app store, it can be a pain with purchases made direct through developer's websites.

Does anyone have any insight into this?

They are the same in that respect.

So was I wrong that you can do a restore without having to re-enter serial keys and such?

Generally you will not need to re-enter keys, Microsoft and Adobe products tend to be exceptions to this rule.

Hey, we have just tried both. Carbon Copy Cloner is very similar to Silverkeeper. Super Duper seems a bit out of date main reason being we don't want to spend the time it's going to take to exclude files or folders from backups - (pgs 20-25 of the manual.) We are after a quick method where we can easily select the folders vs writing lots of scripts for multiple backs that change all the time. CCC also picked up where Silverkeeper left off so we didn't have to redo our whole back up. It really depends on what features are important to you if you are after something quick and easy to use - CCC all the way.