[G4] Retrospect Backup (was G4 OS10.3.9 and G5 with OS 10.4)

[Mel Krewall]

I agree that Retrospect is probably the backup software of choice  
right now. The speed of backup in Retrospect is directly related to  
the number of files. It has nothing to do with Carbon/Cocoa. Since  
Mac programs have done away with resource forks and now store all  
that data in application bundles, plus the fact that Unix uses tiny  
text files for every sort of configuration, a given installation of  
Mac OS X has about three to five times the number of files that an  
equivalent OS 9 installation would have had. Thus it takes longer to  
scan and copy in Retrospect.
<rant>OTOH, I'm not sure that I agree that the purchase of Dantz by  
EMC2 was such a good thing. Development of Retrospect Mac has not  
progressed in a couple of years. Retrospect for Windows has more  
functionality and is two major revs ahead of the Mac version with no  
apparent plans to bring them to parity. I had to pay to upgrade to  
get OS X compatibility without a single new feature. In fact, it has  
not changed materially in about three years except for doing away  
with Express, so everyone has to pay $50 to $100 more to do what you  
did before. Telephone tech support that used to be free is now non- 
existent. If you want tech support you have to buy a maintenance plan  
that is in no way economical for a home network. I have used  
Retrospect and its successors for ten years now, and it has saved my  
system several times, but I'm hoping someone Mac centric comes along  
to displace them. Impression looks like it could get there, but it's  
not yet. The company that makes Impression was very responsive to my  
questions before I even bought the software and has a development  
roadmap that is active. Competition is a good thing, and the Mac  
backup market has not had any for a very long time.
</rant>
Mel

"May thy ball lie in green pastures - and not in still waters."
~Author Unknown


On May 5, 2005, at 7:39 PM, Daniel Brieck Jr. wrote:

> I also like retrospect. I have been using it for a long time since  
> the mac os 8 days. It is a very good program. Never lost any data  
> from it. I Agree that it is a little slow on scanning through  
> 300,000 files, but it is faster than doing a manual restore... Also  
> I think that they are on a better track now with EMC squared  
> running the show. Free updates are good.  The reason I think that  
> Dantz is  slow is because the application might not be a native os  
> 10 cocoa application. I think it is  carbon based. It use to really  
> fly in os 9, but that with much less files (10,000). So i don't  
> know if it is the large number of files with os 10 or just the  
> software itself that is making it  slow...
>
> Dan Brieck Jr.
> On May 5, 2005, at 8:12 PM, Andrew T. Lynch wrote:
>
>
>> John,
>> I do like retrospect desktop.  It runs way faster on my new 2x2.5  
>> G5 than it ever ran on my 2x450 G4.  I tend to start it and walk  
>> away, but I have about 90Gb of backed up storage, and it backs up  
>> a 2-5Gb incremental in 20 minutes or so.  It has saved my a**, I  
>> once had to go back 6 snapshots to find a file that had been  
>> backed up 5 times since it became corrupted.  You cannot do that  
>> with simple sync software.
>>
>> I back up to external firewire hard drives.  I keep a couple of  
>> backups, one at home and one off site.  I swap them weekly.
>>
>> -Drew
>>
>> On May 5, 2005, at 5:02 PM, John Erdman wrote:
>>
>>
>>> I've just ordered a new G5 that will come already loaded with  
>>> Tiger.  I will be setting it up in a home office about an hour  
>>> from here while my trusty G4 with Panther will stay here. I'll   
>>> have full back ups for both computers plus photos and music files  
>>> in an external drive that I can carry back and forth. These are  
>>> just hobby computers so my livelihood doesn't require  complete  
>>> synchronizations and rigorous backups.
>>> , but I probably will want to sync a few things occasionally such  
>>> as address books, mail files, and bookmarks.
>>>
>>> I tried Retrospect once and wasn't impressed with the slowness. I  
>>> gave up after several hours of what seemed to be fruitless churning.
>>>
>>> I've never had to deal with this before. Any suggestions for  
>>> simple synch software? Synch strategies? Any reading suggestions?  
>>> I'll be using both computers. So the files will have different  
>>> content that will need to be merged rather than just accepting  
>>> the file with the latest modification date. And oh yes, I don't  
>>> have a .mac account and one computer is dial up, the other is  
>>> cable DSL.
>>>
>>> Thanks for any suggestions.
>>> John
>>> Peaks Island, Maine
>>>