SuperDuper!: The Ultimate Mac Backup Utility

I’ll admit, since switching to a Mac I’ve procrastinated on backing up my hard drive. When I finally decided to find a decent backup solution, SuperDuper! from Shirt Pocket Software seemed an obvious choice. I’ll avoid the painfully obvious pun, but after using SuperDuper! for a bit, I am completely in love with this utility.

There’s so much to say about SuperDuper!, but the first thing you’ll probably notice when looking at it is its simplicity. If you’re used to backup applications, you know they can be full to the brim with buttons and widgets and sliders. SuperDuper is unique in that it’s a powerful piece of software that even your grandmother could use. This is paramount in one key section of the app—the unique and insanely great “What’s going to happen?” feature. When you’re changing options for your backup, SuperDuper! displays what will really happen with your backup in a human-readable format. Even for a fairly advanced user like myself, this feature came in handy, so I can only imagine how helpful it is for beginners.

SuperDuper! has all kinds of options to choose from. You can backup just your user folder, or you can even copy your entire hard drive to a bootable image file. This makes for a very streamlined backup process, allowing you to save that single disk image file to a network share or an external hard drive for offline backup. Unlike some other utilities, you can navigate this image file as if it were a real hard drive. Accidentally delete that important file? Just mount your backup and find the file to copy it back to where it needs to be.

SuperDuper! is totally free if you just want to do standard manual backups, but if you buy a registered version, you get a host of really cool premium features. The most prolific of these features is Smart Update. With this option selected on your backups, SuperDuper! will do a comparison of your drive to your existing backup and only make the changes it needs to in order to “sync” your disk and the backup. This will save loads of time on your backups, making what could be a three hour process into a super-quick update procedure.

Among the other premium features you get when purchasing SuperDuper!, you’ll find scheduling for automatic backups, extended “copy modes,” and customizable backups through scripting. Even though SuperDuper! in its basic version is free, the registered version could really be the best $27.95 you ever spend. With our Macs increasigly holding more and more aspects of our lives, backup is becoming hugely important, and SuperDuper! is just the solution that we need. Check it out here.