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Issue link: https://digital.macdirectory.com/i/4631
104 MacDirectory
REVIEW
SUPERDUPER
Computer users know that it is not "if" the
hard drive will crash but "when." We all
read about the calamities happening to
"everyone else" but we know it will never
happen to us. Right?
While browsing
VersionTracker Mac OS X
Weekly
I ran across a listing for a backup
program named SuperDuper. With
nothing better to do at the time, I decided
to take a look at the Web site and
download the application. Curiosity you
know, and maybe even an evaluation.
SuperDuper was a creation of David
Nanian and, in his words he has a thing
about clothing so the company name is
Shirt Pocket. Past developments included
UnderWare in 1983, co-founded with
Michael Strickman and BRIEF, now owned
by Borland. After working for
Compuware's NuMega lab for a few
years, he decided to set off on his own
and created Shirt Pocket, "Software for an
audience of one: You."
I downloaded and installed SuperDuper in
my MacBook laptop that travels with me
when I am on the road and gets a lot of
hard use. I was beginning to worry about
the hard drive and was using Time
Machine to back up certain files but I had
not gone to an external backup hard drive
at the time. The installation was quick and
uncomplicated. Not a normal action for
me, but I even printed out the very
complete SuperDuper User's Guide.
I was truly impressed. Easy-to-read
instruction, excellent screen shots and lots
of details. There are two versions of
SuperDuper. The unregistered allows easy,
complete backup to partitions, FireWire
drives, and image files. The registered
version allows you to schedule backups,
quickly update backups with Smart
Update, select specific copy modes and
fully customize the copying process. All
sorts of great features.
I contacted David by e-mail regarding his
program and he got back to me "from a
30-mile bike ride." Now that is what I call
great customer service. He does a lot of
bike riding for relaxation but takes his
Blackberry along just in case a customer
needs help. He provided a upgrade
registration and I was on my way to taking
a close look.
One day later MY HARD DRIVE CRASHED! I
knew it had some mechanical problems
but I had been waiting to replace it.
Waiting for my budget to be in better
shape. I had begun using a 460 Gb
external drive for backup and SuperDuper
had done its job. I was immediately able
to reboot using the external drive and
SuperDuper as a boot program. I had all of
my files except for my e-mail program.
The hard drive had done its dirty deed in
the middle of my working with Entourage
(MS Office 2008 for Mac) and I could not
recover it. I e-mailed David and got an
immediate response and suggestions as to
what action I should take. Again, great
customer service and technical assistance.
This man is a marvel.
I ordered a much larger SATA hard drive
for my MacBook and even upgraded the
memory. Figured I might as well do
everything at one time. Since the crash
took place on a Friday evening I could not
get overnight shipping until the following
Monday. In the meantime I kept right on
working (reinstalled Entourage and began
rebuilding my e-mail address book) using
SuperDuper and the external drive as my
boot disk. It worked perfectly.
My replacement hard drive and memory
chips arrived Tuesday morning by FedEx
and I began my repairs. Installation of the
new hard drive and memory chips took
but a few minutes and I was on my way. A
quick command to SuperDuper to copy to
the new hard drive and within a short
period of time all was well again. A test of
the old hard drive in a USB enclosure
provided absolutely no recovery of
any data.
For an excellent backup and recovery
program, I highly recommend SuperDuper
by Shirt Pocket and David Nanian. You can
find SuperDuper and Shirt Pocket at