bioneural.net

I have very little PowerPC-complied software left on my Intel-based Mac now. Although Appple's Rosetta technology works extremely well, ditching non-Universal apps is not unlike a therapeutic cleansing of sorts. I was anxious to do the same when transitioning from Mac OS 9 to "native" OS X binaries. But SilverKeeper, my long-standing favourite freeware backup app, is compiled for PPC only—and there's no sign of a Universal Binary in the foreseeable future. Should I live with this, or find an alternative?

Silverkeeper is for keeps

I regularly backup the User directories from two computers to a single external hard drive. When we bought a LaCie d2 for this purpose some years ago it came with a utility called Silverkeeper. I've periodically tried other apps (including Apple's own Backup), but kept returning to SilverKeeper because it did everything I wanted with the minimum of fuss. It will:

• Remember the settings from the previous backup, so it knows which files and folders to backup and which to exclude, sending them to the same destination;
• Update the destination with only those files that have changed, modifying, copying, or deleting as necessary to ensure the destination reflects the source in the minimum possible timeframe;
• Restore an individual file simply by copying it from the destination back to the source.

That's it—all I need it to do. I don't need scheduled backups since I use a reminder in iCal to prompt me when a backup is due (as I must retrieve the drive from the safe and connect it up; "no hands" automation is thus impossible). Nor do I need it to keep multiple backup versions, as I don't have the drive space (which isn't as cheap as some folk make out). SilverKeeper can however do these things too. It's compact, stable, reliable, and has a nice personality. What more could I want? Well, it's naive about Intel CPUs...

I wrote to LaCie and asked if a Universal Binary was on the cards. They said (20.12.06, quoted with permission):

No immediate plans. This is because SilverKeeper is I/O bound, and gains little by adding Universal support. In fact, it grows in size, considerably, with no benefit to the user.

Fair enough. But what about that cleansing itch?

Disqualified

Retrospect is the granddaddy of Mac backup applications, but is not Universal.

Apple Backup depends on the weak subscription-only .Mac service. Although this rules it out for me, the app is easy to use and importantly will save time by updating only those files which have changed.

Universal choice

Universal options include the following products, some requiring a purchased license or suggested donation. Features variably include simple copying, incremental backup, versioning, exclusions, scheduling, encryption, archive compression, backup to drive/ removal media/ online server—in varying degrees of transparency.

• BackityMac;
• DataBackup;
• iBackup;
• PsyncX;
• SmartBackup;
• SuperDuper.

SuperDuper

The most attractive option to me was SuperDuper. As we backup two computers to the same external drive, we don't have the drive space to make the recommended full/ bootable ("all files") backup; the non-bootable "user files" option is more realistic. Custom copy scripts (e.g. Documents + User Library, or a script that ignores your voluminous iTunes Library) are not available in the unregistered version.

Derek points out that PowerPC-based Macs [may] need to boot off a Firewire drive, while Intel-based Macs can readily boot from a USB drive as well.

Smart Update copies (or deletes) files and folders as necessary to match the source, taking less time than erasing and copying everything from scratch. Again, this copy mode costs a ~$US30 registration fee, although the unregistered version will completely erase the existing backup and make a time-consuming copy of all files to the source.

Heed the warning: "If you have stored a file on the destination volume that you want to keep, but isn’t present on the source, it will be removed. In general, we strongly recommend that you store a backup on its own volume or partition, on a FireWire or internal drive that supports booting the Macintosh." But you can backup more than one Mac to the same destination if you use sparse images rather than a volume or single partition (see below).

Schedule backups are supported if you need this (I have a repeating event in iCal to remind me). To recover a file you accidentally deleted, it's a simple matter to mount the external drive, mount the disk image, and drill down you directory structure to locate the required file. The backup image is typically a "sparse" type, meaning it grows to accommodate the size of your source files.

The future

Leopard (Mac OS X 10.5) promises to deliver a Time Machine. If that software doesn't live up to the hype, it's good to know SuperDuper is standing by as an Intel-friendly replacement for SilverKeeper. SuperDuper is reported to be least likely to cause problems with metadata loss, although the "partially recommended" SilverKeeper has never let me down.

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