It seems to have worked fine. It claims to be planning to do it again tonight, to the other partition. It looks as if it's working as planned. And it's so much easier to understand what is going on and what's going to happen than in Retrospect! And it's not in a proprietary format: I can
see what's backed up! Excellent!
One cavil, though: I can't find a really quick and easy way to confirm that a scheduled backup went off as expected. I don't know how to see the log unless I run SD!, then click the Schedule button, then click Cancel to get rid of the sheet for making a new schedule - at which point I can see the Scheduled Copies page. (Interestingly, if I show the log without going to the schedule page, I get an earlier log - apparently from the most recent manual backup.)
It'd be nice if I could just (optionally) see something on my screen saying that the copy happened or didn't. Actually, the main copy page of SD! after a manual backup is very nice: all that green is comforting. I'd be glad to see that when I first check my Mac each day. But after a scheduled backup, SD! seems to quit, even when I select Do nothing from the Options page. Could this be an option? Or any kind of message that just waits to be dismissed, saying that the copy happened or didn't?
Btw, am I correct to suppose that once I've made my full "Erase then copy all files" backup, I can just keep making Smart Updates until I replace the Mac or the backup drive? No need to "refresh" the copy?