SuperDuper! as backup/restore program?

[dnanian]

Hi, Staxman -- welcome to the forums.

SuperDuper is definitely not designed to back up to "removable media" (tapes, CDs), and also doesn't do "incremental backups" in the traditional sense: that is, you can't access the "older" files once you've replaced them with newer versions. (Smart Update will update the clone with anything that's changed, and remove things that are no longer there, but it doesn't keep an archive of the items replaced on the clone -- it just endeavors to make it identical to the source again, as quickly as possible.)

Most people, though, don't require multiple levels of archive retrieval -- mostly, they're trying to keep another version of their drive (and, therefore, their data) around, in case something unexpected happens.

Since SuperDuper is designed to create and update full or partial clones, it's ideal for this "full copy" style. Given the approach you've elected, though, I think you'd find SuperDuper wouldn't work.

However, if you decided that CD-based backups were becoming too much of a pain (or that you didn't really need all the past versions of your files), you could move to a HD-based system (and, these days, FW hard drives are quite reasonably priced) and significantly speed both the creation and updating of your backups. (Of course, you can store Retrospect backups sets on the HD too, if you want to maintain your "archive".)

If you're using the CDs are "adjunct storage" so that you can erase the files from the HD without fear of losing access to them, that's a different story, but one where'd I encourage a larger drive, internal or external, rather than CDs, to allow for more convenient and immediate access.

Personally, I wouldn't have the patience for CD backups, and would consider a faster medium -- whether tape or HD -- regardless of the backup software selected. But you've been doing this for a long time, so I wouldn't want to change a good habit -- backing up is an excellent one to get into!