Clone your startup volume with <ditto> or Carbon Copy Cloner

Regarding our previous coverage of making a bootable backup of an OS X volume, and the possible use of the Unix ditto command, Mike Bombich replies:

"You can create a bootable clone with <ditto>, a tool that ship with Mac OS X. I have created a complete guide to the principles of backing up/cloning a Mac OS X disk. It has been recently updated with some important information especially about using hfspax to backup an entire volume and restore it to yield a bootable system.

I have also created a freeware utility with AppleScript Studio that encapsulates ditto and will assist you in cloning your startup disk. It is called Carbon Copy Cloner. This utility does, right now, what Retrospect, Synchronizer Pro, and Sync X all claim to do, but still have not perfected."