Applying system update to safety clone

[na goodman]

I had super duper clone all files to an external fw drive. My question is can I boot
from the backup clone and apply a system update to that or do I have to make
a safety clone and apply a system update. If I make a safety clone would I erase
the back up clone and if all went well when booted from the original mac hd I
could back up all files again. I already had partioned the external firewire drive
but could possible partition the drive again. Would I then have both a full
backup clone and a safety clone? I'm just a bit confused my the terminology.
Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thank you.

[dnanian]

Sure, you can apply an update to a full clone: it just acts like another volume, so that's no problem. However, any changes you'd make while booted from that clone stay on the clone... so, there's no way to roll back while retaining your user data.

With a Safety Clone, when you roll back your user data is retained, so you don't lose things like mail, documents, or whatever else you were doing on the clone.

With a safety clone, once you've decided you're happy with the update you have two choices: boot back to the original and install, then update the safety clone, or clone from the Safety Clone back to the original volume (scary).

In all cases, your 'regular' backup would always back up the main drive, not the safety clone -- there's nothing on the Safety Clone that you can't "get back" easily, since it's just a copy of the main drive's OS with whatever updates you've applied. Your data still resides on the main drive. So, yes -- you'd want *both* a full backup and a safety clone.

Make sense?

[na goodman]

I think it makes sense. I'll partition the external drive again reclone and make
a safety clone on the other partition. I'm more impressed how quickly you responded. Thanks.

[dnanian]

No problem!