Now creates bootable backup clone drives faster

Although Apple's own Time Machine is a good and easy-to-use solution for doing backups of user data, there are tasks it cannot do -- such as create a bootable external drive -- which are sometimes vital for troubleshooting, boot drive maintenance or other kinds of data restoration. Tri-Edre has timed the introduction its latest version of Clone X 4, which is now compatible with both Lion and Snow Leopard, to the introduction of Lion -- allowing users an easy way to clone their existing Snow Leopard installs before upgrading.

In addition to offering full cloning and restoration features, Clone X v4 now copies hard links, metadata and extended attributes of files, and can create "minimal system" versions suitable for emergency boot disks, thumb drives and other limited space media. The program can also create clones that feature everything apart from user information, handy for creating bootable "images" of configurations to ensure uniformity in a classroom or network.

The new v4 is also faster than the previous version, up to 150 percent quicker. The user interface has also been refined to be simpler to use. The new version is a full 64-bit app and requires either Snow Leopard or Lion to operate. The program costs $29 to buy, and users of previous version of Clone X can upgrade for $19. A free trial mode is available.

by MacNN Staff