Itunes ?

I'm not sure either what benefit, if any, would be provided by having a cloned disk, as opposed to simply having a backup disk containing copies of the original files. Perhaps Toby will elaborate.

All I can envision is that it could possibly eliminate the need to point iTunes to a different music storage drive, if the original drive had to be replaced. That would take just a few clicks to do.

Basically, a cloned disk is a disk whose contents are identical to the ENTIRE contents of the original drive, including identification and structure-related information that is used by the operating system but is normally invisible to the user.

Under certain circumstances, having a clone can actually create problems, because (oversimplifying slightly) if both drives are connected simultaneously the operating system may get confused as to which is which.

Regards,
-- Al

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A clone is a bit for bit copy including all hidden files. If you want to make a bootable disk that includes the operating system you have to clone since a backup copy won't grab everything you need to make that work.

If it's just data files then a drag and drop will work but a program like Super Duper is easier and faster especially after the first backup. It will do incremental backups; it will see what is new or changed on the main disk and only copy those to the backup, which is much faster than a full copy.

BTW don't know if it got answered but no, Super Duper doesn't work with Windows formats.

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Al, Herman's excellent response gives my reasoning for the clone operation using SuperDuper. Once it's set up, regular incremental backups become so easy that they are actually likely to get done. As well, familiarity with the SD process may encourage a user to adopt a regular backup strategy for the startup disc too.

As for the possibility of confusion between volumes, operator error is always a thrilling possibility. However the volume and its clone are allowed to have, and should have, different names and creation times. Also, on startup, iTunes will open the last iTunes library used. If that's not available, it will ask to be shown, or told to create, another. It's not likely iTunes will inadvertently get confused this way.

Excellent clarifications, Herman & Toby. Thanks. I believe that assignment of different names and creation times eliminates the possible concern I expressed about cloning.

Cloning programs that I am familiar with, in the Windows world, will usually duplicate absolutely everything, including what is known as the "disk signature" in the drive's "master boot record," which among other things identifies the disk to the operating system. In case you're curious, the kinds of problems that can lead to, especially if the drive being cloned is an OS drive, are described here.

Best regards,
-- Al

Thanks for an interesting read, Al. I don't believe SuperDuper cloning goes quite as far down into the disk structure when duplicating data as the Windows process does. For this reason one would have to consider the Windows cloning operation as more rigorous.

Cloning programs for the Mac were not even necessary before OS X. A simple drag and drop Finder copy would have been enough, previously. SuperDuper adds the extra operations required after the OS change, but the word "clone" is actually a popular usage, it seems.