Disk compatibility

[dnanian]

Many users ask us what disks are compatible with SuperDuper! -- and while I have a list of brands and a discussion in the User's Guide that goes into some detail, I can't buy and test everything (sorry!).

In this thread, feel free to list your own experiences with disks, including boot compatibility, things you had to do to get the drive to work (e.g. most are shipped partitioned for Windows, and you'll have to repartition them for the Mac), speed, etc.

Note that, added to the list in the still-working-on-the-new-version User's Guide are (and remember -- FireWire is always preferred, although you can usually start up with a USB drive on an Intel -- not Power PC -- Mac):


Apricorn
G-Tech G-Drive
Drobo


Finally, as I've said elsewhere, I don't generally recommend MyBook drives. They cannot be used as startup devices on Power PC based Macs, and -- at least in our internal -- have been more prone to trouble/failures.

Have at it!

[Jo*]

I use the following external HD:

One Technologies (http://www.one-tech.com/EN/htm_aludisc.htm) COMBO (FireWire 400 & USB 2.0) | 250 GB

in conjunction with a PowerBook 17" 1.67 GHz on Mac OS X 10.4.11

Works without any flaws using SD! and is boot compatible.

Jo*

[TMay]

I currently have two external Firewire cases from Other World Computing (OWC, macsales.com) both of which have Oxford bridges and work flawlessly with SuperDuper and several different Macs.

One small portable case has the Oxford 911, while the larger two-disk "Elite" case has the Oxford 912. (I use this case in "two disk" mode, not as RAID, though it can be configured that way as well.) The first case is FW 400; the second is both 400 and 800.

I would heartily recommend OWC. I have bought many of their drives, four of their external FW cases, and have always had excellent service/help from them. They know Macs.

P.S. As an afterthought, both of these cases will successfully boot OS 9, if you need to, along with OS X of course.

[Gorisan]

My setup

Enclosure: Vantec Nextar 3 (SATA to USB,FIREWIRE,eSATA)
Hard Drive: WD 500GB

I have two of these units, zero problems so far. (I have only tried firewire)
Boots just fine!

[ChrisA]

Hiya,

I used the following Iomega drives:

Iomega Hi-Speed USB 2.0 7200RPM 500GB (NOTE: USB Drives don't work as bootable drives with a PowerPC Mac)
MacBook (Intel Dual Core - Leopard)
Created a full backup partition (image) and booted from it via USB no problems.

Iomega UltraMax 1GB Firewire & USB
Fine with MacMini (Tiger) and MacBook (Leopard) using Firewire I have not tried using the USB side of it.

Iomega MiniMax 500GB Firewire & USB
Used to upgrade the MacMini from Tiger to Leopard using Firewire. It boots from the image and can access the files OK but Apple's Migration Assistant didn't work. It came up with a "Network timeout error" which I tried to get around but in the end I manually re-installed the apps and copied over the data files as it was quicker to do that than try to find a resolution. I don't know if this was something to do with Superduper! or the Migration Assistant.

Other than that I've had no problems.

[dnanian]

Just want to emphasize again for our Power PC customers: USB drives will not work as startup drives for Power PC Macs.

[diegz]

Hi, by MyBook drives, do you mean Western Digital External Hard Drives in conjuction with PowerPC? What about Intel Imac's, will it boot?

Update:

Found this by dnanian:

"USB will work with Intel Macs (but not Power PC). The WD FW drives seem to not be able boot Power PC Macs, but will work with Intel as well"

Gonna buy it now...

[Budgie]

Hi
All drives listed are boot-able via SD, external and use Fire Wire only, with zero issues.
-----------------
PPC: 10.4.11
x 2 Newmotion Technology 150GB

Lacie:
x4 500GB Drives (server)
--------------

Lacie Group SA:

INTEL (White): 10.4.11
x2 500GB Drives

INTEL (Alluminium): 10.5.5
x2 500GB Drives
--------------

[Ricky]

I've had good experience with the Newer Tech (OWC) MiniStack (with Oxford chipset). I've used one for years as external backup for an iMac (Power PC), and have successfully tested it for booting and restoring to the iMac, via FireWire. I added a second MiniStack, and it's been solid too. They stack on each other.

[dnanian]

I really cannot recommend the MyBook drives. And they will not work as startup drives for Power PC Macs.

[Gerry Yu]

dnanian,

I use WD my passport 250 GB to superduper backup (1) my intel iMac 17" and (2) my MBP intel Core 2 Duo 2.2 Ghz without any problems whatsoever. They both boot up perfectly as well. (This WD drive has USB only)

Hence, I just bought another WD My passport studio 250 GB and backed up my intel MBP. It is also problem free with perfect boot up. (This has both Firewire 400 and USB)

I really like your Superduper product and use it exclusively for my backups. I tried time machine but do not use it any more.

Gerry Yu

[SDyes]

I really cannot recommend the MyBook drives. And they will not work as startup drives for Power PC Macs.

Strange, I have, for two-three years now, "smart-updating" a bootable clone of a PowerPC iMac G5 to an external WD MyBook USB/Firewire400 drive, dedicated for this purpose.
Using Firewire on a PPC of course, the booted clone has sometimes been running for weeks with no problem. It's most of the time powered off though.

This MyBook drive was purchased 2005/06, maybe newer ones have problems.
I'm still with SuperDuper! 2.1.4 and Mac OS X 10.4.10 on the iMac G5.

(Since 2005, I have/had totally 5 Western Digital MyBooks USB/Firewire400 for media. 2 died of pretty heavy use and more-than-average fragmented, I believe.)

[dnanian]

Not that strange: there must be some models that work. But their knowledge base pretty clearly indicates incompatibility with Power PC (Open Firmware) units... and that's been confirmed by me, too. But, I obviously haven't tested every drive. :)

[padmavyuha]

I might have missed it searching the threads here, but I'm getting an external HDD that's eSATA/USB2, and I want to know whether there's any problem with SD cloning to the drive via the eSATA interface? That would make for a fast clone, and then I can always boot from USB (I'm using a MBP with an eSATA expresscard).

- padmavyuha

[dnanian]

Shouldn't be a problem assuming the drive is properly partitioned.

[wwc]

I've tried using SuperDuper! with my Vantec NexStar 3 2.5" IDE enclosure (http://www.vantecusa.com/front/product/view_detail/176). I've tried multiple drives with mostly poor results. The backup usually works. Afterward, however, Mac OS X (Tiger) sometimes refuses to mount the cloned drive; the drive never appears in Finder and nothing useful appears in the system log files.

I have never successfully booted to a drive in this enclosure. I recommend staying away.

[gantte]

Hi, first the setup introduction.
I'm using a macbookpro 2.4 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo, Leopard 10.5.6.
My internal disk is Hitachi HTS723232L9A360 (320GB 7200rpm SATA)

I bought my SuperDuper! about 2 weeks ago. I bought another identical Hitachi raw drive (identical to the internal disk above) from OWC and also a case for the drive. The case is an AMS Venus DS2 model 2215SESBk (SATA internal to eSATA+USB2.0)

I connect the external Hitachi via the USB 2.0 connector, as the macbookpro does not have eSATA connections.

This combo works flawlessly with SuperDuper!. It initially formatted using Disk Utility as Mac OS Extended Journaled. Then I did the initial SuperDuper! Erase, full copy and make disk bootable. Since I don't know the magic key code to select an alternative boot volume on power up, I use System Preferences --> Startup Disk and the external disk is recognized, I select it and the system reboots from the external disk.
FM! (F*g magic!) As it should work!

Now, today I was in Sam's and found a real deal on a Maxtor OneTouch 4 Mini. This is also a 320GB disk, and with the same USB 2.0 to USBmini connector. I formatted Mac OS Extended Journaled, and let SuperDuper! have it's next two hours doing the initially Erase, Copy all and make bootable.

Unfortunately, when this finished, this Maxtor OneTouch was NOT recognized as a valid Bootable disk using System Prefs --> Startup Disk. So I tried then to recopy the data, but this time using Smart Update. This took less than 10 minutes and I verified in the Log that the disk was set to be bootable.

Still I cannot see the Maxtor OneTouch as bootable.
Here is the info from System Profiler:
OneTouch:
Capacity: 298.09 GB
Removable Media: Yes
Detachable Drive: Yes
BSD Name: disk1
Product ID: 0x7350
Vendor ID: 0x0d49
Version: 1.25
Serial Number: ----------
Speed: Up to 480 Mb/sec
Manufacturer: Maxtor
Location ID: 0xfd100000
Current Available (mA): 500
Current Required (mA): 100
Mac OS 9 Drivers: No
Partition Map Type: MBR (Master Boot Record)
S.M.A.R.T. status: Not Supported
Volumes:
GanttBackup2:
Capacity: 298.09 GB
Available: 160.21 GB
Writable: Yes
File System: Journaled HFS+
BSD Name: disk1s1
Mount Point: /Volumes/GanttBackup2


If I unplug the Maxtor, using the SAME USB CABLE and plug in my external Hitachi, it spins up, mounts and is recognizable with Startup Disk. Here is the info from Profiler from the Hitachi:

JM20336 SATA, USB Combo:
Capacity: 298.09 GB
Removable Media: Yes
Detachable Drive: Yes
BSD Name: disk1
Product ID: 0x2336
Vendor ID: 0x152d (JMicron Technology Corp.)
Version: 1.00
Serial Number: ---------------
Speed: Up to 480 Mb/sec
Manufacturer: JMicron
Location ID: 0xfd100000
Current Available (mA): 500
Current Required (mA): 2
Mac OS 9 Drivers: No
Partition Map Type: GPT (GUID Partition Table)
S.M.A.R.T. status: Not Supported
Volumes:
GanttBackup:
Capacity: 297.77 GB
Available: 160.15 GB
Writable: Yes
File System: Journaled HFS+
BSD Name: disk1s2
Mount Point: /Volumes/GanttBackup 1

Any ideas on why the external USB connected Hitachi is bootable and the external USB connected Maxtor OneTouch is not bootable?

In comparing the two profiles of these drive, I note that the Partition map type of the Maxtor that is not seen as "bootable" is: MBR (Master Boot Record).

While the Partition map type of the Hitachi is: GPT (GUID Partition Table)
This *is* seen as bootable.

Thoughts?

Finally, thank you for a wonderful backup tool.

[gantte]

OK, I just found in the FAQ this statement:
"Macs cannot start up from volumes that are partitioned with Master Boot Record, regardless of chip. So, make sure your external drives are partitioned with APM (if you want them to work with both Intel and Power PC Macs) or GUID (if you're only working with Intel)."

So since I've discovered that that the non-booting Maxtor OneTouch is partitioned "Master Boot Record" I assume this is directly related to my problem. So-o-o, what is "APM" and is it possible to reformat my Maxtor OneTouch so that SuperDuper! images are bootable?

Thanks again.

[gantte]

Ok, I've found under Disk Utility the way to select the Maxtor OneTouch to be partitioned with GPT (GUID Partition Table). I just blown away my previous work on the OneTouch and Erased and Partitioned it as one disk, with GPT. I'm now re-cloning the disk and I'm confident that my booting woes will be resolved in a few hours. Sorry for all the followups, hopefully this will help the next guy.

[dnanian]

Glad you've figured it out - I was a bit worried as I read your list that you were going to partition as "APM", which was incorrect for your situation.

[gantte]

I'm now able to recognize and boot from the externally cloned Maxtor OneTouch 4 disk drive! By holding down my "Option" key on power up, and holding it a few seconds, I got two big icons right in the center of my screen. I chose the orange USB disk icon and up it came. Excellent! I'm still not sure why when I formatted my external Hitachi in the case, that it was formatted as GPT with no intervention on my part. I formatted the OneTouch yesterday exactly that way I did the Hitachi, and the "default" behaviour was Master Boot Record mode.

Anyway, a few lessons learned and hopefully if others want to pick up a Maxtor OneTouch 4 320GB USB disk at Sam's Warehouse/Sam' Club, they were $95.
By having a few extra drives around, dedicated to doing nothing but SuperDuper!
backups, you really prevent catastrophic and timely downtime. My work on my
computer is worth a lot more than the $95 for the disk and + $27 into the SuperDuper!.

Thank you for a wonderful, easy to use, and completely MUST HAVE tool.

[dnanian]

Glad it's now working as expected, gantte!

[JB3]

Hi all!

During Christmas I bought my sons and I the new Seagate FreeAgent Go for Mac 500GB external HD packages, thanks to Aston Kucher's TV ad's impression on my sons that this was a good thing, and MacWorld's review that it was a solid speedy drive.

This last week I put SuperDuper to work creating bootable backups of (first) a black Intel MacBook. Wonderful. Works using USB 2 (requires two cables) or Firewire 400. Thank you Shirt Pocket and Seagate.

I then went to work on a PowerBook G4, 1.5 GHz, making sure to use the firewire port, since I wanted it to be a bootable backup when I restarted from the backup. No dice.

The transfer rate in backing up the internal drive was exceptional, and took minimal time, but when I tried to boot from the drive using the Seagate's supplied FW 800 to 800 cable or FW 800 to 400 conversion cable, the PowerBook would not boot from the drive. I then tried to boot another newer PowerBook G4 with the faster 1.67 GHz processor using the same disc. Still no dice.

I used Disc Utility to check the partitioning information on the Seagate external and found it to be a GUID partition.

Is this perhaps the reason it will not boot on the PowerBooks (PPC G4 Macs)? If so, I have already determined that erasing the drive with Disc Utility (v11.1 under System 10.5.6) or using SuperDuper will not return it to an APM status.

How can I format the disc as APM to try on the two PPC PowerBook G4's that I have? (Note: see the following posts to make a PPC or dual-boot drive from this disc.)

...JB

[chris_johnsen]

The Disk Utility application can repartition a drive (select the drive, select the Partition tab, select Options…, select Apple Partition Map, …). Changing repartitioning will erase all the existing data. If you need to preserve the data you might be able to use a third party application like iPartition (http://www.coriolis-systems.com/iPartition.php).

[JB3]

How to format a GUID Disc to APM:

Open Disc Utility. Select the disc to be re-formatted. Select Partition, choose the desired number of partitions (which can be 1), then options. The options dialog will allow you to select the type of format: GUID, APM, or Master Boot Record, and will show information regarding which format will work as a start-up disc on Intel and PPC systems. (Note: The options button remains grayed out until you select a number of partitions.)

Nice.

Further references for creating a dual (Intel [I]and[I] PPC) bootable SuperDuper backup include these two excellent references:

http://www.maccast.com/2006/11/03/ppc-intel-external-firewire-drive-an-easier-way-with-superduper/#more-784

http://www.macosxhints.com/article.php?story=2006061610374449

...JB

[JB3]

Thanks, Chris.

iPartition is a great utility for just that reason and perfect in this instance.

...JB

[Bob Anderson]

Having had some problems with the LaCie power supplies I decided to look around for an alternative.
I ended up buying two Freecom 500 GB external firewire drives Model 31251.
After six months of use I don't think I'll be buying any more LaCie drives.
These Freecom drives are brilliant. I'm using one, reformatted, on a G5 tower and the other, straight out of the box, on an Intel iMac.
Both drives work perfectly with Time Machine and are bootable from their SD backups.
They're also, on this side of the pond anyway, much cheaper than the LaCie models......£90 ish from Amazon.

[nekomatic]

Has anyone got any experience with the LG XD1 series external portable hard disks please? They seem to be the cheapest 500 GB portables on sale in the UK at the moment, excluding no-name brands and WD Passports.

[dnanian]

No direct experience nor any users I remember having the drive, no.

One thing, though. You're buying a drive to do backups because you value your data. Going for the "cheapest" isn't always the best thing to do... isn't your data worth the few extra $ you'd have to pay to get a high quality drive?

[nekomatic]

Of course, but if a choice of high quality drives is available it seems reasonable to pick the cheapest one. At the moment I don't know if the LG drive is high quality or not, that's why I'm asking for people's experiences of it ;)

[Hugh]

I would heartily recommend OWC. I have bought many of their drives, four of their external FW cases, and have always had excellent service/help from them. They know Macs.

I agree! Other World Computing (http://www.macsales.com) is great.

I have 2 of their Mercury Elite Pro enclosures for IDE (USB/FireWire 400) and recently purchased one of their Mercury Elite Pro enclosures for SATA (USB/FireWire 400).

You can't go wrong with a purchase from OWC. They definitely know Mac hardware.

OWC Mercury Elite Pro FireWire 400 + USB 2.0 Oxford 934SSA Enclosure Kit - for 3.5" SATA Hard Drives (http://eshop.macsales.com/item/Other%20World%20Computing/MEFW934FW2I/)

You can purchase a complete external drive from them, or build your own from an internal SATA driver from NewEgg.com with OWC's Mercury Elite Pro external enclosure.

WD Green WD15EADS 1.5TB 32MB Cache SATA internal drive (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136351)

[Goldengoose7]

I have good results with both the Buffalo DriveStation Combo 1TB and LaCie 301442U d2 Quadra 1TB.

Both drives are run off Firewire 800 ports on an iMac and a Mac Mini.

In addition to the SuperDuper backups, we also use these externals to handle Time Machine backups for our 5 machines, both local and over our LAN.

[zickzhou]

The Linux Net attached storage.
Dlink DNS-323 works file with SuperDuper

[PhysicsGroupie]

I haven't seen them mentioned much, but I've had success with a FireWire/USB Iomega eGo. I don't remember if it came set up for Mac, because I reformat when I partition anyway. I think it was set up for Apple, but their USB only version is set up to work with Windows. The newest FireWire eGo models are named "Mac Edition." I have the earlier 320GB model, which is still widely available for purchase at this time.

The drive comes with Retrospect Lite, a horrible software that seems like a relic from the tape disk era. I tried it because it was free with the drive, but free is too much in my opinion. SuperDuper! on the other hand, is very easy to use. I think it's great that it can be used for free to get a good, working backup. What a wonderful service for the Mac community. I bought the license to get all the features. The price is reasonable, and the smart backup saves a lot of time, especially if you have more than one Mac as I do.

I made seven partitions on the drive, one each for four of my six PPC Macs, one partition for a clone of the Tiger installation DVD for my CD-RW iMac that can't read DVDs, one partition for TechTool, and a large partition for throwing data off my computers to free up space on the internal drives. It's amazing how well an old Mac runs Tiger if the OS has enough room to do its thing. Many times I've exceeded a thousand open tabs in Safari with no slow-down (unless I try to close a large number at once) on an iBook 466MHz SE running with the maximum 576MB of RAM, if I stay under 10GB full of the 20GB drive. But mysteriously, other days two tabs is too many.:p

I've test-booted each of the back-up partitions on the eGo, and each of them works perfectly. SuperDuper! is almost too easy to use. I love it. I've been a user of TechTool Pro, DiskWarrior and even Anubis for a decade now. I'm glad to finally have a utility that requires no effort on my part. I start up a Mac using Safe Boot, connect the eGo, open SuperDuper! (which remembers which partition the particular Mac is backed up to) and it already knows I want to do a smart backup. One click later it's off and running. It's not very fast- varying between 12-45 Mbps. Seems to take 45 minutes to back up unless I did it a few days earlier. Then it takes 25-30 minutes or so with a 60GB drive at 20GB full. The computer hardware is older, it might be faster on a new system. It is faster than Retrospect Lite by far.

I'm very happy with both the eGo and SuperDuper!, my only druther is that Iomega doesn't make the desktop version of the eGo with FireWire- it's USB only. I'd snap one up in a heartbeat if it had FireWire, I like the look of the product a lot. (I bought the eGo largely because of its nice shape and pretty ruby color. Probably not a factor for 95% of the people who will read this.)

The eGo comes with a nice warranty, and it's very quiet. It has no fan, so it does get HOT quickly. I don't leave it plugged in. I consider the lack of a fan to be a plus, as the noise bothers me. Only my fastest computer, a 17" iMac G4 has a fan- and that's one reason it's rarely used. I keep a few silent, portable fans around my computers to facilitate the heat removal, which I recommend for anyone running a fan-less PPC. I point a fan on the eGo sometimes, but really, it's not made for lengthy periods of use. If you are in the market for a drive to leave attached all the time, I would not recommend the eGo. Otherwise, it's just fine.

[Ronin]

Hi all!

During Christmas I bought my sons and I the new Seagate FreeAgent Go for Mac 500GB external HD packages, thanks to Aston Kucher's TV ad's impression on my sons that this was a good thing, and MacWorld's review that it was a solid speedy drive.

This last week I put SuperDuper to work creating bootable backups of (first) a black Intel MacBook. Wonderful. Works using USB 2 (requires two cables) or Firewire 400. Thank you Shirt Pocket and Seagate.

I then went to work on a PowerBook G4, 1.5 GHz, making sure to use the firewire port, since I wanted it to be a bootable backup when I restarted from the backup. No dice.

The transfer rate in backing up the internal drive was exceptional, and took minimal time, but when I tried to boot from the drive using the Seagate's supplied FW 800 to 800 cable or FW 800 to 400 conversion cable, the PowerBook would not boot from the drive. I then tried to boot another newer PowerBook G4 with the faster 1.67 GHz processor using the same disc. Still no dice.

I used Disc Utility to check the partitioning information on the Seagate external and found it to be a GUID partition.

Is this perhaps the reason it will not boot on the PowerBooks (PPC G4 Macs)? If so, I have already determined that erasing the drive with Disc Utility (v11.1 under System 10.5.6) or using SuperDuper will not return it to an APM status.

How can I format the disc as APM to try on the two PPC PowerBook G4's that I have? (Note: see the following posts to make a PPC or dual-boot drive from this disc.)

...JB

I do not know what your final disposition was with this problem as I stopped to comment after reading your problems. I purchased one of the Seagate units like the one you did and it was a complete failure. It would not boot at all. I spoke with Seagate tech support and they denied that it was supposed to be bootable!!! I sent it back to the merchant I purchased it from.

Seagate lists it as Firewire/IEEE 1394 compatible and that specification lists booting capability. What a bunch of idiots!:mad:

[donlibes]

My Seagate FreeAgent Desk 1TB is able to boot my G5 after I repartitioned the drive as APM. I wish I had known about the partitioning stuff in advance because the FreeAgent package said "Formatted for Mac!" but what that really meant was that it was GUID so my first attempt to create a bootable drive merely created a readable drive, not a bootable drive. Oops. Works now, though.

By the way, how does one tell what kind of chipset is used? It's not on the product box and I went to the manufacturer's website and can't find it there either. I suspect it's not the chipset but rather some part of the Firewire protocol that simply isn't implemented on these other chipsets. (I took a look at the Firewire docs and they're filled with versions and options, sigh. I guess I shouldn't be surprised.) I spoke to an Apple engineer and asked if Apple could formally describe their requirements for a bootable drive and his response was "Apple doesn't support firewire boot. If it works for you, that's great but it's not supported." So that's their way of getting out of having to explain their requirements. Sigh.

[dnanian]

Kind of a silly response from Apple, but what can you do. :)

Anyway, it's hard to tell what chipset a drive uses if they don't advertise it, alas. But I'm glad your drive works for you.

[axxxxe]

I have a 500G WD My Passport Studio that will not boot a 17" (non-unibody) MBP over FW800 but will over USB.

The bootable volume on the WD is selectable in Prefs > Startup Disk but the computer will not boot from it if it's connected by FW800 (reverts to booting from the internal disk after a 30-sec delay).

Starting up with the option key also only shows the internal disk when the external is connected with FW800.

It'll boot over USB but i t ' s s o s l o w . . .

[gaedoh]

Hi
All drives listed are boot-able via SD, external and use Fire Wire only, with zero issues.
-----------------
PPC: 10.4.11
x 2 Newmotion Technology 150GB

Lacie:
x4 500GB Drives (server)
--------------

Lacie Group SA:

INTEL (White): 10.4.11
x2 500GB Drives

INTEL (Alluminium): 10.5.5
x2 500GB Drives
--------------
I have a LaCie d2 Quadra 500GB interfaced by Firewire to a Mac Mini with 10.6.2. With both Time Machine and SouperDouper, the icons for the partitions keep disappearing from my Desktop, so that back-ups cannot be done. A dialogue box appears saying the disc is unrecognisable, and suggesting I initialise. If I do, I assume I will lose what is on the LaCie. Solution please ?

[dnanian]

Sorry, but it's not surprising that WD externals are having problems with your Mac...

[dnanian]

That means that the drive is either failing internally and not responding, so the bridge drops, or that you've got other FW issues. Contact LaCie.

[jofallon]

I've had trouble with Western Digital external drives myself. It looks like Seagate as of now is only doing USB 2 and USB 3 drives, though (looking for one to backup my wife's iMac yesterday). Even eSATA seems to be fading.

My experience with USB has been pretty slow. Are there any good current recommendations other than WD?

[dnanian]

Didn't I recommend a bunch at the top of thiis thread and n the User's Guide?

[iamgreen]

David,

I've read highly critical reviews of Drobo. I *wanted* to hear good things, since I have about five large but different high-speed HDs. Have you seen NewEgg and Amazon reviews-- they are really awful, and Apple has pulled the product. Like many people, I want to put all these drives to work and not spend too much, but many enclosures seem to be $500, and they require matching drives. I also don't want wind-tunnel loud fans running in my living room. I'm a huge silentPC guy.

Oh- I'm somewhat happy with a stop-gap solution: the inexpensive BlacX dock by Thermaltake. It has an eSata connector (speed) and USB (for booting, if necessary). This way I can use some of the large drives for redundancy by having three.

Any more recent suggestions?

Thanks,

iamgreen

Many users ask us what disks are compatible with SuperDuper! -- and while I have a list of brands and a discussion in the User's Guide that goes into some detail, I can't buy and test everything (sorry!).
...

Apricorn
G-Tech G-Drive
Drobo


Finally, as I've said elsewhere, I don't generally recommend MyBook drives. They cannot be used as startup devices on Power PC based Macs, and -- at least in our internal -- have been more prone to trouble/failures.

Have at it!

[dnanian]

I've got three Drobos here I test with frequently: a Drobo Pro, a regular Drobo and a Drobo S. I like all three (though I think the Drobo software - that is, the Dashboard - is pretty awful on the Mac).

[jazzdog]

Not that strange: there must be some models that work. But their knowledge base pretty clearly indicates incompatibility with Power PC (Open Firmware) units... and that's been confirmed by me, too. But, I obviously haven't tested every drive. :)

I have 2 500GB MyBook Pros (FW800/FW400/USB2.0) that I've been using with SuperDuper for 2 or 3 years to backup my PowerPC Mac Mini. I've had no problems with them. Booting via FW800 works perfectly.

I've just bought a 2TB G-Tech G-Drive (eSATA/FW800/FW400/USB2.0). Only arrived yesterday, but I've already backed up my MacBook Pro and tested the backup. All good so far.

[dnanian]

Your experience with MyBook drives is atypical, and certainly conflicts with my own experience... Perhaps they have made some recent changes.

[jazzdog]

You're right to counsel against them. Most My Book's won't be bootable on Power PC Macs, but my model is one of the rare exceptions...

http://wdc.custhelp.com/cgi-bin/wdc.cfg/php/enduser/std_adp.php?p_faqid=1787

"WD external hard drives that are Mac bootable and how to format them to install an operating system..."

"...The following external hard drives should be bootable on Power PC based Mac computers systems through FireWire (1394a/b):

WD My Book Premium Edition
WD My Book Pro Edition"

[dnanian]

Thanks for that additional information!

[Estuary]

My Maxtor FireWire 400 EHD may be dying, so I'm looking to replace it with a FireWire 800 drive. I see that Maxtor is now owned by Seagate. Are Seagate EHDs recommended? Also, any opinions on Iomega FW 800's? Thanks in advance.

[dnanian]

I would probably suggest the LaCie d2 Quadra or 2big.

[RockBottom]

I recently purchased a LaCie d2 quadra 3-TB hard disk and plugged it using its FireWire 800 connector: I ran SuperDuper 2.6.2 using the standard "backup - all files" script to make it bootable (X 10.5.8), and it seemed that everything went well, but in the end the drive wasn't actually bootable… it didn't even show when pressing the option key at boot time, even though it appeared as one of the bootable candidates when viewed by the start-up disk pref-pane!


I tried again with the latest SuperDuper 2.6.4: same result…
I partitioned (GUID scheme) the drive (three 931-GB volumes) then tried to back up the system files on the first, then on the second partition: to no avail…
I tried the same on a 2-year old Lacie d2 quadra 1-TB : no problem!
should I conclude that this particular type of drive can't be used to boot OS X, or is there something I'm doing wrong?

[dnanian]

Try connecting it with USB instead. Does it show up at Option+boot then?

[Enigmacode]

Thought I'd also share:

Have #4 (discontinued), external OWC eSata Enclosures, (No Bridges - No Frills). Each enclosure contains #2 2TB Hitachi DeskStars, and a few older Seagates. Use straight up eSATA connections thru #2 Dat Optic PCIe 4 port eSata cards. http://www.datoptic.com/four-esata-pci-express.html Transfer speeds vary from approx. 10,000 MiB/s to about 2,000 MiB/s, (sometimes less).

*Depending on the size of the drive, the 'All Clear Green Indicators' sometimes take a few seconds to come up. All seem to work fine.

Why so many drives?

I'm working on a WWII Documentary - multitudes of Video.

Mike

[htownhman]

Avoid the Seagate GoFlex Slim 320 GB USB drive -

Tried this and it produced a very flawed backup.

La Cie Max drive worked well USB or Fire Wire

G-drive mobile drive via Fire Wire works flawlessly.

Moral of this story:

READ THE MANUAL AND FAQ!!!

You will find a list of drives and brands that work.

Don't be like me - I read the manual and set up the backup properly a few years ago... jog your memory!!

H

[G.Wright]

I have two external drives, both set up the same way - two partitions, one partition for Time Machine and the other partition for SuperDuper full bootable backups for my Intel iMac.

The Seagate GoFlex 1TB came with both USB 2 and FW800 adaptors (There is an optional adaptor for USB 3) - I use the FW. I keep this one in my locker at work, and update it every couple of weeks.

For home/desktop backups I have a Glyph GT050Q 1TB which has an Oxford 924 chip and USB 2, FW400/800 as well as SATA connections. I use the FW800.

I recently tested my ability to boot from the Glyph - no problems. Need to test the GoFlex soon.

[Budgie]

Hi All

Just updated my 15" 2010 MacBook Pro's internal drive to a 256GB Samsung SSD 840 Series
drive.

1) Firstly backed up MacBook to external 1TB Lacie Quadra fire wire drive.
(tested boot from external, excellent)

2) Mechanical install of internal SSD drive flawless.

3) Went to format SSD drive using disk utility, had an issue
where disk utility said the drive was locked and couldn't be formatted.

4) Rebooted holding down "command r" (recovery mode) went to disk utility
formatted the SSD drive from here, perfect. (must have killed something
that was having a hold over the drive that disk utility couldn't cope with
from the mounted drive).

4) Booted into external fire wire drive, backed up to internal SSD
rebooted from internal drive, excellent.
(opted not to do a fresh install of the OS as some people have recommended,
as I trust SD implicitly).

5) Initiated TRIM Support
(as this is not an Apple drive trim was not initiated automatically)

5) Daily back up's to an external drive are flawless.

hope this helps

Budgie

forgot to mention, back up's all though fast used to take approx 15 minutes, now they take 8, very cool

[dnanian]

That would make sense - we're I/O bound, so faster reads and writes mean a faster backup (and vice versa).

Thanks for the report.

[Estuary]

Hi, Dave. What are your current recommendations for EHDs? Is FireWire still preferred over USB? Are WD and Seagate still not recommended?

[dnanian]

So, new Macs don't even have firewire, so on those I'd suggest USB 3, which is both fast and cost effective. Thunderbolt is costlier by a lot, and overkill for our purposes.

For older Macs with FireWire, that's usually the best solution. I generally recommend LaCie d2 Quadra drives, which are well built, have multiple interfaces, and have good compatibility.

[RFMoya]

My frustrating situation is identical to RockBottom's post (on 12-13-2011) -- SuperDuper successfully executes a flawless backup to a brand new LaCie d2 Quadra 3-TB drive (purchased direct from LaCie 2 weeks ago) & the resulting backup correctly appears as one of the selectable/bootable drives in the Startup Disk pane of the Mac's System Preferences. BUT the new LaCie/SuperDuper backup will not boot when connected via FireWire; & will not even show-up at "Option+boot" when connected via FireWire. And as to the question asked of RockBottom (that he never answered), if I connect the new LaCie 3TB drive via USB it indeed shows-up at Option+boot & starts-up just fine!

Over the weekend, while I waited to be able to contact LaCie tech support, I tried everything I could think of to get it to boot off of FireWire: confirmed GUID partition, reset PRAM & SMC, tried the Mac's FireWire 400 port, tried it on 2 other Macs (an identical '07 iMac and a MacBook), new cables, etc… Nothing worked. I even tried a clean install of the Mac OS onto the new LaCie -- but the clean install failed of course because it has to re-boot during the installation process.

Monday afternoon, when I was finally able to speak with LaCie tech support, I was informed that LaCie hard drives are flat-out NOT SUPPORTED as to being bootable, on FireWire or any interface! I just could not believe it because I currently have 6 other LaCie d2 Quadra's (of various age & capacity) any one of which would always happily boot via FireWire! The tech support rep said that any of the LaCie drives may or may not be bootable, but none of their drives are guaranteed to support boot-ability!

Just to confirm what the tech support rep said, I then called & spoke with a sales rep and a "Customer Service Manager." Everyone was as nice as could be, but everyone agreed that no LaCie external hard drive is officially supported to be bootable!

Wow!

So it appears that I must now re-think my backup strategy… Should I trust my backups to my older, but bootable, LaCie drives? Should I return my new LaCie drive & get an OWC Mercury Elite Pro? The OWC sales rep that I spoke with today said that they WILL guaranty their drives to be FireWire bootable; but maybe her information is not accurate… Or should I just not worry about the boot-ability of my backup 'cause I can always boot from a DVD or other drive… And just to make my decision even more complicated -- Apple is phasing-out FireWire & my '07 iMac will not last forever; maybe I should just be happy that the new LaCie 3TB 2d Quadra boots off the USB port & not worry about it now…

But "not worrying" is just not part of my nature; especially when it comes to computer backups…

Any feedback at all would be heartily appreciated.

[malkruger]

I found the previous well written posting to be of great concern, since I have a total of five LaCie firewire drives utilized for Superduper backups. The variety of four older drives have always booted properly, but my new LaCie drive, D2 Quadra Firewire 3-TB, had only been used to store Superduper backups.

So I attempted to boot from the new drive (identical to the one referenced in the previous posting) via Firewire 800 and it booted perfectly. I realized the same perfect booting as I had always experienced with every older LaCie Firewire drive.

[dnanian]

If the drive will boot from USB, that seems fine - for whatever reason, it's not working on FW, but use USB if you need to boot (and whatever interface you prefer for copying)...

[RFMoya]

I certainly don't mean to start a panic, but malkruger's 3-TB d2 Quadra booting fine via FireWire, while my exact same drive fails, is indeed covered in the LaCie tech's statement to me that "any given LaCie drive may, or may not, boot a Mac." Either way, a hard drive's boot-ability is not officially supported by LaCie, so as far as they are concerned, any of their drives that fail to boot a Mac (while operating correctly in all other regards) are NOT considered defective or any kind of problem or warranty issue for them at all! ... I guess it's just the luck-of-the-draw as far as LaCie goes…

Please don't get me wrong -- I have had a long & happy relationship with LaCie & their products. But what I heard from them on the phone today has really thrown me for a loop… I honestly don't know what to do… Because I purchased the drives directly from LaCie, and they are less than 30-days old, I guess I could return them for a refund… But maybe I'm expecting too much from LaCie -- I really don't know what's the "industry standard"… Is the boot-ability of an external hard drive that variable regardless of the manufacturer? Is this really "normal?"

[dnanian]

All external drive support people tend to say this kind of thing, and they're just being kinda silly. Really, don't worry about what they're saying.

[jimco]

I'm trying to use SuperDuper! to copy from a Drobo to a pair of disks that are concatenated using Disk Utility. SD gets ready to do it, but simply quits immediately when I issue the final command. It creates no log file apparently.

Is it the concatenated disks that it is choking on? I attach a screenshot from DU to show how the concatenated disks appear there.

I don't want to unnecessarily complicate the issue, but I'm doing this remotely via Screen Sharing on a Mac Mini.

Thanks.

[dnanian]

Sounds more likely that it's incorrectly unlocked (not running from the startup drive, or copied from another system unlocked).

Try re-locking the lock in the main window, then copying (and entering the proper admin user info when prompted).

[jimco]

Yes that was it. Actually it was locked; I just needed to cycle through the lock setting, adding the password. I never would have guessed that, in fact I had never noticed that lock before - thanks!

[Budgie]

MacBook Pro
Retina, 15-inch, Late 2013
2.6 GHz 16gb ram
500GB SSD
OS X 10.9 (13A3017)

Lacie 2TB P’9233 Desktop Drive USB3.0 & 2.0

SD 2.7.1 (V91)

Initial erase and copy, perfect, boot into external drive to test, perfect
subsequent scheduled smart updates, perfect

6 minute smart updates, oh so fast excellent :D

[dnanian]

Very nice indeed, Budgie!

[justal]

I've been using Western Digital MyBook drives with SuperDuper! for years and have been able to start up from them using a FireWire interface without any issues.

However, I recently got a new iMac (lucky me) which doesn't have FireWire. I have therefore also bought a new USB3.0 WD MyBook Drive (I couldn't afford a Thunderbolt drive). I have successfully cloned my new iMac to this but don't seem to be able to start up from it. Am I doing something wrong?

I have the older FireWire drives attached to the iMac now as well (using a Thunderbolt to FireWire adaptor) and they seem OK, I just can't start up from the new USB MyBook.

Any suggestions?
Thanks,
Al.

[dnanian]

Does it show up in the startup disk preference pane as a startup volume?

[justal]

Yes, it does. And it shows up as a start up volume if I hold down the option key on start up.

Al.

[dnanian]

And what happens when you select it? Does the same thing happen for both the startup disk preference pane and Option+Power On?

[Francois]

I have the new Mac Pro (6.1) with both USB3 and Thunderbolt connections. Due to the fact that any additional storage have to be external, and I have already several USB3 drives (OWC and QVoyager), I have added an Anker USB3 hub (9 ports).
For SD backups of the system disk I'm now using a Crucial M500 480 GB SSD in an OWC Mercury Elite pro enclosure. No problems, effective copy speed varies from 80 to 300 MB/s. The disk may be plugged into the hub, or directly to the Mac . No marked difference.
Booting from the Crucial disk is another matter. When connected to the hub , it won't boot, although it is displayed as "startup disk" in System Preferences. Furthermore, it is not displayed as a bootable option by an "Alt-Boot".
But if connected directly to an USB3 port on the Mac it boots OK.
So I don't worry but I'd like to know if some of you have experience of booting from USB3 on a hub (and which one ?) .

[dnanian]

This isn't a *huge* surprise - hubs are, generally, bad/evil/flaky/weird. But you have an easy workaround, should you need it - connect directly to the Mac.

[chrisjonesxray]

I need to buy a portable drive for a new MacBook Pro (without firewire).

With thunderbolt and usb 3.0 as the only ports what are the best options out there?

Will anything available be bootable?

[dnanian]

As I already indicated in an emailed response, a LaCie or WD USB3 or Thunderbolt drive should work fine and will boot.

Note that some Macs don't like booting with some USB3 drives if they're in "SuperSpeed" mode (that is, using a USB3 cable). Substituting a USB2 cable (which will fit in 1/2 the port) at boot time will resolve that.

[G.Wright]

Many users ask us what disks are compatible with SuperDuper! -- and while I have a list of brands and a discussion in the User's Guide that goes into some detail, I can't buy and test everything (sorry!).

In this thread, feel free to list your own experiences with disks, including boot compatibility, things you had to do to get the drive to work (e.g. most are shipped partitioned for Windows, and you'll have to repartition them for the Mac), speed, etc.

Note that, added to the list in the still-working-on-the-new-version User's Guide are (and remember -- FireWire is always preferred, although you can usually start up with a USB drive on an Intel -- not Power PC -- Mac):


Apricorn
G-Tech G-Drive
Drobo


Finally, as I've said elsewhere, I don't generally recommend MyBook drives. They cannot be used as startup devices on Power PC based Macs, and -- at least in our internal -- have been more prone to trouble/failures.

Have at it!

I just spent several days researching what external hard drive I should buy to replace my failed Glyph GT 050Q 1TB. As my Glyph failed after only 3.5 years of very light use (maybe 2 hours/week) and gave me quite a few failed backups over the years - and also often wouldn't Eject, etc. - I couldn't justify paying their price for another one.

By necessity, I share Dave Nanian's enthusiasm for Firewire, because the only other ports available on my 2011 iMac are: Thunderbolt (fast, but few and pricey), or USB 2 (slow). But fact of the matter is, since he wrote this post in 2008, there have been A LOT of changes in external hard drives.

When I asked about Firewire at my local Best Buy store, I was informed that those are 'obsolete' - they didn't even have a Firewire cable, much less a selection of Firewire drives. Almost all of the externals on Best Buy's shelves were USB 3.0, only. Yes, I'm told those USB 3 drives will work on my USB 2 port - but at USB 2 speeds, obviously.

Some of the HDD manufactures that used to be reliable, are now less so. And one that used to be somewhat flakey - Western Digital - is now of the more reliable brands - BUT - they are apparently putting some kind of firmware in the chips of their external drives which have caused problems for some, and which is hard to get rid of.

Another up-and-coming brand mentioned above is the G-Tech G-Drive. Overall the G-Drives get pretty good reviews, but there are an alarming number of people reporting that they have problems with Firewire, and they are forced to use USB. If you have USB 3 on your computer, that is no big deal, but for those of us stuck with USB 2, it may be - unless you schedule all your backups to happen while you are asleep.

I finally bought a Mercury Elite Pro - 1.0TB - from OWC. It has FW800, as well as eSATA and USB 3.0 ports. I've partitioned it so SuperDuper and TimeMachine can each have their own partition, and connected with FW800 (Intel Mac users MUST repartition this drive - Disk Utility works, fine). My first backup of each was flawless - a relief, after fighting the Glyph for the past few days.

I'd really like to see some reports on the Thunderbolt drives - particularly how they work with SuperDuper and TimeMachine - boot ups - etc.

I'd also like to know if any kind of Thunderbolt-to-USB3 or Thunderbolt-to-eSATA converters are available, and if those setups will boot an Intel iMac - because the selection of Firewire drives does not seem to be getting any better.

I almost forgot - I use a Seagate GoFlex for Mac portable drive, 1TB which can switch from USB 2 to Firewire - no significant problems since 2011. I backup that one once-per-week and keep it off site.

[dnanian]

I'm sorry. There are so many drives, and so many Macs, and so many combinations, it's nearly impossible for me to provide a list of drives that are "known good", but "known good" can only be for combinations that we can test.

Thunderbolt, in general, should work fine, as should USB drives. Some drives (like G-Drives) may need firmware updates to improve their Mac compatibility, but that's rare. Sometimes you need to attach the drive when you Option+boot, rather than having it attached before. Problems, though, are generally rare.

[G.Wright]

I'm sorry. There are so many drives, and so many Macs, and so many combinations, it's nearly impossible for me to provide a list of drives that are "known good", but "known good" can only be for combinations that we can test.

Thunderbolt, in general, should work fine, as should USB drives. Some drives (like G-Drives) may need firmware updates to improve their Mac compatibility, but that's rare. Sometimes you need to attach the drive when you Option+boot, rather than having it attached before. Problems, though, are generally rare.

I understand.

Thanks for starting this post - which is a valuable asset for SuperDuper users trying to pick a backup drive from the ever-changing selection which is available to us!

What sent me here today was the frustration that fewer of available hard drives can connect with FireWire, and several of the few that are available have other problems. Add to that the fact that there are fewer Macs with a FW port - and obviously, at some point, the advice in the Users Guide:
"Our general advice is to get a FireWire drive from Other World Computing, WiebeTech, LaCie or a Maxtor OneTouch. We have tested these drives for compatibility, and all work well with the Mac."
... is going to need to be updated - as well as the 'Sticky' that starts this thread ("FireWire is always preferred").

I don't think a comprehensive "known good" list is needed, but some general guidelines - just like the comments you made here about Thunderbolt and the G-Drives - and all the other excellent observations you have made throughout this thread - if summarized - and put in the Help Guide, or on the SuperDuper website, or at the start of this Sticky might get newbies up to speed quicker.

Someone who glances at the User's Guide, or reads only the start of this Sticky might incorrectly conclude the software is mostly for Macs with FireWire. And some of us long-time users may be getting nervous about the shrinking supply of FW backup drives, and wondering about other options - which are mentioned - but sprinkled throughout this longish thread.

[dnanian]

I do try to say, in the User's Guide, that USB works fine with Intel Macs, whereas you need FireWire for Power PC Macs. When it's an option, FireWire is preferred. When it's not an option, though...

[dianeoforegon]

The Western Digital My Book USB 3.0 drives work well after reformatting with Disk Utility.

The WD My Passport with Unlock does not. To remove the software that locks the drive it requires a Windows machine. You need to download Data Lifeguard Diagnostic for Windows.

This will completely remove the unlock partition and erase all software on the drive.

Now you can format properly in Disk Utility.

My suggestion would be to take the Passport back and exchange it for a MY Book USB 3.0.

[dnanian]

Thanks for the info, Diane!

[Budgie]

just brought a new imac for my prepress dept

iMAC 27" 3.2ghz 32gb ram 1tb fusion drive

I generally use lacie drives as I have had a good run with these for years, I opted to try a lacie Porche Design P9220 1tb USB, the drive is only 130mm x80mm x 18mm, from a virgin imac I did the initial erase and install, blazing speed, backed up in 18 minutes, installed a heap of other software, and then did a smart update, wow, fast, 6 minutes
boot test from external was as expected a little slow, but up and running in about 2 minutes

BRILLIANT

SD ROCKS

[dnanian]

Nice, Budgie!

[MichaelD]

This isn't a *huge* surprise - hubs are, generally, bad/evil/flaky/weird. But you have an easy workaround, should you need it - connect directly to the Mac.

Any good hubs or are all evil?

[dnanian]

Well, powered hubs with beefy power supplies are better than unpowered ones. The Plugable ones I've used have been OK, but USB (1/2) is just not great with external hubs (you already have a hub in the Mac itself - the external hub is another one).

External Thunderbolt "hubs" with USB ports have been pretty good in my experience, because they're native USB ports. But they're much more expensive.

[prouss]

Does anyone have any experience with the Seagate Backup Plus drives? I bought one as the Wirecutter recommendation only to discover that it doesn't seem to work as a bootable clone (the Mac just doesn't seem to see that partition). Seagate has a support site that says (in a bad translation from something):

"5.) Booting from USB on a Mac

It is possible to boot your computer from an external drive, but Seagate does not provide assistance in getting it to work.

The only drives that have been tested to make sure they are to be bootable on Intel-based Macs are the “For Mac” drives. For this reason we suggest using the “For Mac” drives when trying to install your operating system, or clone to the external drive."

So at best it would seem I should get the "Backup Plus Hub for Mac", although I don't really need or want to pay for the hub feature. Or since I got a great price on the non-bootable one, I could keep that one and get a cheap smaller drive for booting purposes only. Any recommendations? Thanks

[dnanian]

I don't have any problem with the Backup Plus drive I have here. You seem to have multiple partitions - does it work if you only have one? Are you sure the drive is partitioned as GUID?

[prouss]

Thanks for getting back to me. Yes, the drive has multiple partitions; I haven't tried booting with only one but even if it did work I wouldn't keep this drive because it's 4TB and my clone is only around 250GB at most, I got the larger one to be able to do Time Machine backups of my Mac and the household laptops too. (Am I correct in assuming that the TM backups have to be in a separate partition from the SuperDuper clone or else they'll be erased?)

And yes, it is partitioned as GUID.

[dnanian]

No, as I explain in the FAQ entry, they can share the same volume as long as you use Smart Update...but TM does grow until the drive is full, so eventually you'll fail.

Some Macs have problems with large (>2TB) drives if the partition you're trying to boot from is past the 2TB "point" on the drive...

[prouss]

Sorry, missed that, I'll have a go at putting them in the same partition.

Could you explain what you mean by "past the 2TB point" - do you mean larger than 2TB or lower in the list after a 2TB+ partition (ie does the order of creating the partitions matter)?

Thanks

[dnanian]

Yes, the order matters. The boot volume needs to be in the first 2TB.

[prouss]

Yeah, success, thank you!! It didn't work combining TM backups and SD backups in one partition but once I erased the disk and made the SD partition the top one everything was fine.

But one more silly question, sorry - if I want to do SD backups of additional computers, those need to be in separate partitions, correct? Ie even Smart Update of a second Mac would overwrite the first Mac's clone?

Thanks again

[dnanian]

Yes, they'd have to be separate volumes.