SuperDuper! backing up while you work?

4leafplanet · Post by **4leafplanet** » Wed Mar 12, 2014 12:46 pm

I backup and/or clone my Home Disk & external HDs also while i record... is that ok?

My audio is recorded onto a external HD. And i regularly do other things on the side (import mp3's, write email, etc.) while in DP, or rather, DP is on all day, and other stuff gets done too. Even with my TimeMachine doing its thing, i think nothing of backing up with SuperDuper! 4 or 5 times a day with various jobs.

The thing is, i never stop what i am doing. Does anyone track while SD is backing up? (I figure that since TimeMachine is running constantly it must be ok.) I'm not talking about backing up Projects as i work, i do that anyway to a separate external drive than either the audio HD or Internal HD.

I've read people use SD! to back up at night etc. and that isn't an option for me.

I would appreciate a reply from any computer savvy member please... I've been fortunate as far as disasters, but I'm concerned whether I'm getting sloppy with my practices.

Thanks!

4Lp

bayswater · Post by **bayswater** » Wed Mar 12, 2014 1:25 pm

I use both SD and Time Machine. SD is scheduled to run at times I won't be using the Mac and I run TM manually on my main system.

There is an option to shut the system down after SD runs, so setting it up to run late in the night should work in most cases. With a simple Apple Script I'm sure you could do the same with TM.

I don't notice any performance hit with Time Machine, but with SD running my laptop is noticeably less responsive. I'd wonder about the reliability of a backup performed under those circumstances.

4leafplanet · Post by **4leafplanet** » Wed Mar 12, 2014 3:47 pm

i can't let SD run late. And i have SD set to close after its done not matter when, that's not an issue. Why would system resources going to SD to make the backup un-reliable? And i thought TimeMachine was designed to run in the background.

bayswater · Post by **bayswater** » Wed Mar 12, 2014 5:15 pm

4leafplanet wrote: Why would system resources going to SD to make the backup un-reliable?

Maybe it doesn't. I get more errors on DVD burns when other things are happening on the computer. In theory it shouldn't happen, but it does. The accuracy of a back is critical, so I don't take the chance.

4leafplanet wrote: And i thought TimeMachine was designed to run in the background.

Yes, I suppose it does, in a sense. It's certainly slow enough. For a while, I had TM backups going to my main audio drive and wanted to make sure the disk was doing one task or the other at any one time. I have a dedicated backup disk now, but never changed things back. I always do a manual drag and drop back up of an active project, and other stuff on that system doesn't change much so hourly TM backups are not that helpful.

frankf · Post by **frankf** » Wed Mar 12, 2014 9:19 pm

I had a conversation with Shirtpocket a while ago. The recommendation was in order to get an accurate complete clone run as little as possible while cloning. New or changed files post SD start may not get cloned until the next time you run SD. I've no idea about how SD or CCC do their magic but the concept does makes sense.

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