With the Mac Pro I have to abandon Retrospect and after looking at other backup programs w/ an incremental feature Super Duper looks the best.

Before I plunk down my $27 is their any other less expensive, as reliable, program I'm overlooking? I really don't want to spend the $27 with Time Machine on the horizon, so less expensive alternatives greatly appreciated.

Better? No, not in my book.
Cheaper? Yes, CCC.

BGnR

---

"Good heavens, Miss Sakamoto! You're beautiful!"
"If we dig precious things from the land, we will invite disaster."
"Near the day of Purification, there will be cobwebs spun back and forth in the sky."
"A container of ashes might one day be thrown from the sky, which could burn the land and boil the oceans."

Just curious is there some incompatibility with Retrospect and the new Mac Pro?

CCC has not been updated for the last couple of OSes. Apparently Mike Bombich was assimilated.

I've used the free version of Super Duper (no incremental automation, etc.) and it's an excellent program.

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tortoise
Just curious is there some incompatibility with Retrospect and the new Mac Pro?

My bad. I should have been more specific...It's Retrospect Express I'm talking about, not the full version. The express version doesn't work either Rosetta and there is no UB version either (guessing there never will be).

If you own Toast, Deja Vu is included free - and works excellent for nightly backups. CCC still works PERFECT.

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Good Luck!
Jamie Dresser
Other World Computing

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tortoise
Just curious is there some incompatibility with Retrospect and the new Mac Pro?

Is there?
Or, is that more of a "Why don't I use Retrospect?".
Dantz sat on their azz for too long before begrudgingly releasing something for OSX.

BGnR

---

"Good heavens, Miss Sakamoto! You're beautiful!"
"If we dig precious things from the land, we will invite disaster."
"Near the day of Purification, there will be cobwebs spun back and forth in the sky."
"A container of ashes might one day be thrown from the sky, which could burn the land and boil the oceans."

BGnR;
I really don’t care if people choose not to use it, for my money there is nothing better and I use it for both Macs and PC clients and my personal machines. I have been using it for years and I am comfortable with the admittedly difficult learning curve that stops many users from employing it.
The snapshot feature with the ability to store a history of the state of the machine in particular is useful and I use it for software testing on both Macs and PC, installing new software and if a week later I don’t like it I roll the system back. Also the ability to search within the history for any particular file that may have been deleted has proved valuable with my clients. They are amazed when I come up and do a search within Retrospect and restore a single file they may have deleted over a year ago.
It is easy to find fault with any software product and Retrospect is no exception, I have devoted many hours learning it and dealing with the growing pains of OS-X, Windows XP and the many glitches encountered along the way. I also see the improvements and frankly find the product is unmatched by any of the favorite substitutions often mentioned on the forums.

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tortoise
BGnR;
I really don’t care if people choose not to use it, for my money there is nothing better and I use it for both Macs and PC clients and my personal machines. I have been using it for years and I am comfortable with the admittedly difficult learning curve that stops many users from employing it.
The snapshot feature with the ability to store a history of the state of the machine in particular is useful and I use it for software testing on both Macs and PC, installing new software and if a week later I don’t like it I roll the system back. Also the ability to search within the history for any particular file that may have been deleted has proved valuable with my clients. They are amazed when I come up and do a search within Retrospect and restore a single file they may have deleted over a year ago.
It is easy to find fault with any software product and Retrospect is no exception, I have devoted many hours learning it and dealing with the growing pains of OS-X, Windows XP and the many glitches encountered along the way. I also see the improvements and frankly find the product is unmatched by any of the favorite substitutions often mentioned on the forums.

Wow! You a bit heated about this, or are you just coming across this way?

Little background, I was using Dantz Retrospect in an enterprise situation for over eight years, it saved my ass several times, 12 times alone during the "Quantum Stiction" debacle, we had 1600 seat site license.
So, don't slam on me, especially after Dantz abandoned the Mac.

BGnR

---

"Good heavens, Miss Sakamoto! You're beautiful!"
"If we dig precious things from the land, we will invite disaster."
"Near the day of Purification, there will be cobwebs spun back and forth in the sky."
"A container of ashes might one day be thrown from the sky, which could burn the land and boil the oceans."

how about silverkeeper from lacie

i wasnt aware that CCC could do "incremental" backups?

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Edited 999 time(s). Last edit at 12:08PM by jdc.

Read it any way you want, I just find your offhand dismissal of their product offensive. And they have not abandoned the Mac, I use and employ it with many Mac clients and it has saved several of my business clients who would also disagree with you.

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tortoise
Read it any way you want, I just find your offhand dismissal of their product offensive. And they have not abandoned the Mac, I use and employ it with many Mac clients and it has saved several of my business clients who would also disagree with you.

They did absolutely abandon the Mac platform, when we needed them the most. I could not put upgrade plans for my clients on a four year hold, while Dantz made up their mind on whether or not to support the Mac again.
I guess as a newcomer your point of view is a bit different, but before you slam someone, it wasn't an "offhand dismissal", I had brought Retrospect in, I had championed the product, it was my ass on the line, and the client loved it. Then Dantz abandoned us, after eight years I had to switch systems, to a unix solution, something I had no control over. Had to schedule a "unix coordinator" to do file recovery for my customers. Dantz is just a "Johnny Come Lately" now. Oh, BTW, I find your accusations "Highly Offensive", since you know nothing of where I made this decision from.

BGnR

---

"Good heavens, Miss Sakamoto! You're beautiful!"
"If we dig precious things from the land, we will invite disaster."
"Near the day of Purification, there will be cobwebs spun back and forth in the sky."
"A container of ashes might one day be thrown from the sky, which could burn the land and boil the oceans."



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/17/2006 10:36AM by BigGuynRusty.

BGnR
I have also been a Retrospect user for ten years now, and hardly consider Dantz a “Johnny Come Lately” They are a company trying to survive like everyone else and like other companies it took some time to adjust and switch to OS-X. So what, they were not alone and this still is going on with Adobe and the Intel chips. I got through it and my clients understood and they still use Retrospect as it meets their requirements. It is the nature of the business and they were expanding into the PC world at the same time and that was a smart business move on their part. The new “Time Machine” coming in Leopard is just another example of why these companies never bet their entire bottom line on any one company who might turn around in the next year and make their product obsolete. They did not abandon the Mac, they did the best they could to keep up with the rapid changes and still keep their overall business healthy. Looking back it was a wise move as they might not still be in business had they dropped everything else and worked on the Mac platform to the expense of their other business interests. That it did not meet your specific needs is rather inconsequential to a company of their size, and if you visit their forums it will be evident that the community of Mac Retrospect users is still alive and well.

Chupa,

I tried and tried to use Retrospect as shipped with my OWC external drive. It may be powerful, it may have features, but its ridiculous interface and inability to do what it's told (scheduled daily backups) renders it unacceptable. I became fed up with checking the status of my backups on a Thursday only to discover that Retrospect had forgotten to backup Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday. And of course when I tried to do an immediate backup I got the famous "catalog is locked" error. It was suggested that I go to the Retrospect user forum which I did, and discovered that the users have not discovered a solution and Dantz has not offered one althought the problem is years old.

If you have a .Mac account I'd suggest Apple's Backup. It's true that you have to go to your backup drive and manually delete incremental backup files as the drive is filled (which takes less time than loading the Retrospect Help page), and in experiments it takes about 10 minutes to restore one file. But: it works without fuss or hassle. Otherwise I'd second JimBrady and go with Super Duper since it looks like you only need a temporary solution until Time Machine comes out.

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[picasaweb.google.com] [www.flickr.com]

LADIES! PLEASE!

Sheesh.

What I find offensive is the original post -- where in the world do you work that you're so poor you can't afford $27 measley dollars (that's what, a half a carton of cigs? A meal at Denny's?) to buy software that works RELIABLY, EFFICIENTLY and EFFORTLESSLY until Time Machine (1.0, so you KNOW it will work PERFECTLY right?) comes out ... SIX TO EIGHT MONTHS FROM NOW?

Unbelieveable. No wonder the Mac shareware world is shrinking.

SuperDuper is HANDS DOWN one of the best products out there in that field. But the price of a few Mocha Latte Grandes is TOO MUCH for reliable, automated backups of your precious data.

Particularly when compared to Drivesavers' $1500 average recovery charge, I think SuperDuper is a bargain. Guess that's just me and the other 4%.

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chas_m




[crawlingfromtheusa.blogspot.com] <-- Moving to Canada blog

Yes, but SuperDuper! is not an incremental backup program. It is an outstanding cloning application, but it is only incremental if you manually make multiple backups. A clone is better than no backup at all, though.

And you guys should stop talking about Dantz in the present tense. They no longer exist, as they are a part of the EMC Empire now. And yes, I am just as annoyed and upset that they have neglected the Mac version of Retrospect for such a long time, but I've been able to get it to work well enough in whatever setups I've had to deal with. And I did read somewhere that EMC has a major revision of Retrospect for Macintosh in the works, but I'm not sure when it will be ready.

Whatever EMC comes up with, it will probably be more robust and reliable than Time Machine 1.0, as intriguing as that particular part of Leopard does look to me.

And by the by, EMC Insignia still offers an upgrade path from Retrospect Express to Retrospect Desktop 6.1, which works just fine on Intel Macs. $50 instead of the $120-130 a new license for Retro Desktop would cost you.

[www.emcinsignia.com]
[www.macconnection.com]

I use SilverKeeper. It is free. I don't have very sophisitcated needs and I've found it meets them just as well as super duper.

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jimbrady
CCC has not been updated for the last couple of OSes. Apparently Mike Bombich was assimilated.

I've used the free version of Super Duper (no incremental automation, etc.) and it's an excellent program.

AFAIK, Mike is now an Apple employee, working on code for them. I think his plan isn't to abandon CCC, it is just that he is REALLY busy.

feel free to correct me if I am wrong, it is just that I remember trivial things like this with a startling degree of accuracy.

I think it was OWC Larry who mentioned it when he started to recommend SuperDuper, and that was the main reason he made the switch. And I can understand his POV. It isn't just the product today, it is the support tomorrow. And CCC's support may be spotty in the future (I said MAY, I have no extensive experience either way)



Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 08/17/2006 03:36PM by Racer X.

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chas_m
LADIES! PLEASE!

Sheesh.

What I find offensive is the original post -- where in the world do you work that you're so poor you can't afford $27 measley dollars (that's what, a half a carton of cigs? A meal at Denny's?) to buy software that works RELIABLY, EFFICIENTLY and EFFORTLESSLY until Time Machine (1.0, so you KNOW it will work PERFECTLY right?) comes out ... SIX TO EIGHT MONTHS FROM NOW?

Hey Chas_m why don't you step down from your self-designed pompous stool and maybe take a class in reading comprehension. Since you think you are a higher being please point out where in my OP I stated SD was too expensive or I refused to pay for SD? That should provide you with entertainment for your evening. (Hint: I never said that.) I only ASKED if there were less expensive alternatives. It's what once does in a capitalist society where there are product choices. If I can get a similar program for less, well that is more money in my pocket to spend on other things or just bank for the future (sorry to disappoint, but I neither smoke nor eat at Dennys.) OTOH, if SD is the best out there for the money, then I have no problem buying (that is pay for it, not just use the freeware version). Funny thing is you want to imply I'm cheap, but I bet you buy all your clothes on the clearance rack @ JC Penneys.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/17/2006 04:39PM by Chupa Chupa.

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Silencio
Yes, but SuperDuper! is not an incremental backup program. It is an outstanding cloning application, but it is only incremental if you manually make multiple backups. A clone is better than no backup at all, though.

Not true. I use SuperDuper! for scheduled incremental backups (every Wednesday and Sunday evening at 9:30). It's entirely automatic.

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tronnei
Not true. I use SuperDuper! for scheduled incremental backups (every Wednesday and Sunday evening at 9:30). It's entirely automatic.

[en.wikipedia.org]

The phrase "incremental backup" is typically used for backup systems that not only just back up files that were modified since the last backup (which SuperDuper! does do with its Smart Update function), but also does not overwrite previous versions of the backed-up files. That is something that SuperDuper! does not do, but Retrospect and Apple's forthcoming Time Machine do.

Having a fully updated clone is better than nothing, but there are many circumstances where it's not a good enough solution.

I know of very few problems with Retrospect that haven't been traced back to user error.

I still don't know of another program that will let you look at past snapshots. Sorry, but thats what I expect out of a backup program now.

SuperDuper works great to clone a drive but I don't see that as a true backup. After all, if you let the problem or missing file continue until your next backup, you're just going to copy your mistake.

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Matt,

"I know of very few problems with Retrospect that haven't been traced back to user error."

Please explain how the "catalog is locked" error is due to user error and how it can be avoided. Also explain why Retrospect is inconsistent in remembering to do scheduled daily backups. Note that I do not count the instances when my computer is asleep at the scheduled time and is not awakened by Retrospect.

---

[picasaweb.google.com] [www.flickr.com]

FWIW, the last version of Retrospect I have (started with v. 1, way back when) is 5.0.238, which was an update to 5.0 to enable me to back up OS X clients using Retrospect on my OS 9 G3. But at some point it stopped even backing up the old machine, telling me the catalogue exceeded 2GB in size. I went to the user forum a few times, but found the discussions way over my head. The program now seems less intuitive than even BackupExec, which I use out at my wife's medical office (all PCs out there).

So I've pretty much stopped using Retrospect and have been backing up part of my TiBook's user folder with Apple's Backup to an iDisk, and dragging the whole user folder to an external HD. But I'd like an intuitive, scriptable, backup program that I could use with a minimum of fuss. It would be nice to have incremental snapshots.

Although Backup came with the .Mac account, it works with external drives as destinations (you don't need iDisk), but I don't understand what was said above about deleting the incrementals. They do seem to pile up—are they snapshots? And can I do a 'full' backup from time to time? It also doesn't seem to be able to back up files/folders from other drives or other computers (Apple is not very forthcoming with information).

So I could use some recommendations, too.

/Mr Lynn

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mrlynn
Although Backup came with the .Mac account, it works with external drives as destinations (you don't need iDisk), but I don't understand what was said above about deleting the incrementals. They do seem to pile up—are they snapshots? And can I do a 'full' backup from time to time? It also doesn't seem to be able to back up files/folders from other drives or other computers (Apple is not very forthcoming with information).

Lynn, yes you can do a full backup in Backup whenever you want. I'm not sure if that's something you can schedule though. Whether the incrementals count as snapshots or not I don't know, but you can browse each incremental backup and retrieve any file as it was on that day. You have to delete the incrementals manually; Backup doesn't do it automatically. I figure I'll keep maybe two months worth of them but I'm in no special hurry to get rid of them since I've got plenty of room on my external drive.

> AFAIK, Mike is now an Apple employee, working on code for them. I think his plan isn't to abandon CCC, it is just that he is REALLY busy.

That's what I said... he's been assimilated... a la the Borg. Apple has various ways of subsuming intellectual property it covets--one way is to imitate/improve upon the concept (think Konfabulator), the other is to can't-beat-'em-hire-'em like with Bombich. Yup, he's busy, too busy to make a note of the EOL status of CCC on its website.

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Don Kiyoti
Lynn, yes you can do a full backup in Backup whenever you want. I'm not sure if that's something you can schedule though.

Don, how do you tell Backup to do a full one? I don't see a command anywhere.

Quote

Whether the incrementals count as snapshots or not I don't know, but you can browse each incremental backup and retrieve any file as it was on that day. . .

Even if the file was subsequently changed? That sounds like a snapshot to me!

Is there a full discussion of Apple's Backup program somewhere?

/Mr Lynn

This is probably more money than you want to spend ($60), but I'll throw my 2 cents in.

I started "Data Backup" a year ago and it has faithfully made an incremental backup every night at 3 am...without fail. I found the interface inuitive and easy to understand. I have my backup scheduled 10 minutes after starting the program for the first time.

[www.prosofteng.com]

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Silencio
Yes, but SuperDuper! is not an incremental backup program. It is an outstanding cloning application, but it is only incremental if you manually make multiple backups.

This answer is technically correct but misleading.

SuperDuper can do two kinds of backing up: full clones (absolutely everything apart from some temp files et al copied onto another drive in exactly the same way), and Smart Updates (which are often called "incremental backups" to distinguish them from full clones). Smart Updates copy over ONLY those files that have been modified. The result is an updated full clone that does not retain information from before the last update.

Real "incremental backups" (sometimes also called "versioning") is not something SuperDuper does. But versioning requires WAY more disc space than updated clones, so I think Joe Public (if you can get him/her to backup at all) would find SuperDuper the best consumer-level product presently available.

Having worked with Retrospect for almost two decades now, I think I can definitively state that it's not really a consumer-friendly product. It can be mastered, and to us propellerheads it's not that difficult (just buggy!), but frankly it's beyond the ken of most non-geek users. SuperDuper isn't perfect, but it's way better than Retrospect (and cheaper, and faster, and more complete) for the average (or below average) user.

It will be interesting to see what ShirtPocket does in response to Time Machine.

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chas_m




[crawlingfromtheusa.blogspot.com] <-- Moving to Canada blog

you all might be interested in this blog, [blog.plasticsfuture.org]
and his earlier blog "The State of Backup and Cloning Tools under Mac OS X" [blog.plasticsfuture.org]

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The Taoist Zhuangzi said, "Good order results spontaneously when things are let alone".
The sociologist, and historian, Adam Ferguson described the phenomenon of spontaneous order in society as the "result of human action, but not the execution of any human design".

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jimbrady
> AFAIK, Mike is now an Apple employee, working on code for them. I think his plan isn't to abandon CCC, it is just that he is REALLY busy.

That's what I said... he's been assimilated... a la the Borg. Apple has various ways of subsuming intellectual property it covets--one way is to imitate/improve upon the concept (think Konfabulator), the other is to can't-beat-'em-hire-'em like with Bombich. Yup, he's busy, too busy to make a note of the EOL status of CCC on its website.

I thought you were implying that he went to work for M$ developing bloatware riddled with security holes large enough to drive a '74 4-door Lincoln Continental through.

Hey, can SuperDuper back up OTHER computers on the network? Including PCs?

If not, what can (other than Retrospect)?


/Mr Lynn

Mr. Lynn,

"Don, how do you tell Backup to do a full one? I don't see a command anywhere. "

Plan menu > Full Backup

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[picasaweb.google.com] [www.flickr.com]

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Don Kiyoti
Plan menu > Full Backup

Oops! [red face] Shoulda looked harder.

Thanks.


/Mr Lynn