Chapter 9. Create a Bootable Duplicate

Along with versioned backups, bootable duplicates are a key pillar of a complete backup plan. They let you get back to work quickly in the event of a hard drive failure, give you a useful troubleshooting tool, and make upgrading to a new version of Mac OS X safer.

You can’t make a bootable duplicate by copying files in the Finder; you need a special utility. Lots of programs can do this, but I want to focus on two—SuperDuper and Carbon Copy Cloner—that focus on just this one task but do it easily and effectively.