Two Problems with SuperDuper backup

I've not been having much luck with OS X backup. I really wanted Retrospect 8.x to work, but every rational voice I trust tells me to stay away from it. It must be terrible to be the responsible product manager.

Time Capsule/Time Machine works ok, but it's not suited for offsite rotation. Carrying around unencrypted data is not a great idea.

SuperDuper! is suitable for offsite rotation, but it has the same problem. Even though it can backup to an image, the image isn't encrypted. You can create an encrypted disk image and have SD do a daily "smart backup" to that; in my testing SD will load the backup on demand and even load the encrypted image (as long as the pw is stored in your local keychain).

There have been many requests for the author to add encryption but he's held off. I hope he'll come around eventually.

The other problem with SuperDuper backup is that you can't test it. The automatic smart reconciliation feature requires payment first. Even EMC provides a 1 month evaluation copy of Retrospect, but Shirt Packet doesn't allow us to test the key backup features of SuperDuper.

See also:

• Time Machine, Time Capsule and offsite backup
• Online backup – the security problem (it’s not the encryption)
• OS X Backup: Apple's Backup 3.x
• CrashPlan (or JungleDisk) instead of Retrospect 8?
• Retrospect 8 - no user guide?
• Freeing up Time Capsule space – and documentation for Time Machine and Time Capsule
• Airport Extreme: Firmware update, Time Capsule bugs, tips and fixes

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