toggle

AAPL Stock: 438.62 ( -4.31 )

http://www.macnn.com/articles/02/03/27/readers.respond/

Readers respond to Retrospect 5 changes

updated 10:20 am EST, Wed March 27, 2002

 
", 0, 0);


MacNN readers note changes in Retrospect 5 functionality with the introduction of the four new tiered editions:

"One thing you may wish to bring to the attention of readers is that the 'Desktop' version no longer will run on AppleShare IP Servers or Mac OS X Servers. If you want to back up a server, you have to purchase the 'Workgroup' version which includes 20 remote clients, whether you want those clients or not. I don't know how this affects other people, but the price difference between the two products is large enough to be a barrier to entry for many of my customers, a lot of whom are state-run schools... it's hard enough to even convince them to purchase a decent backup system in the first place."


by MacNN Staff

Post tools:

TAGS :

 enterprise, servers

Related Articles

Recent Articles

toggle

Comments

  1. MacNN.com Reader

    Fresh-Faced Recruit

    Joined: Jul 2001

    0
    03/27, 10:45am | report spam | Reply |

    Oh my god

    My computer crashed, and I can't get up. Help Retrospect. :(

  1. phillymjs

    Fresh-Faced Recruit

    Joined: Jun 2000

    0
    03/27, 11:21am | report spam | Reply |

    This is extortion!

    And as soon as I get home tonight, I'm going to write them to complain about it.

    About 2 months ago, one of my clients bought a new OS X Server setup and a SuperDLT backup system that included Retrospect 4. As I understand it, this was within the time frame to entitle them to a free upgrade to version 5.0 when it was released. We've been using the beta on the OS X Server to back up the server, and do not back up any network clients. And now they're going to s**** my client over by making them purchase something unneeded and ridiculously more expensive? What a bunch of c***! If it's true, it's the last money Dantz will ever get out of me or anyone I recommend software to-- no matter how hard it is to live without Retrospect.

  1. throatmonster

    Fresh-Faced Recruit

    Joined: Aug 2001

    0
    03/27, 11:21am | report spam | Reply |

    Dantz Stinks

    Retrospect for the Mac is a pile of junk. I've had constant problems with version 4.3 running on OS9, up to and including constant 'beta expiration' issues surrounding OSX. Now they want me to pay MORE for 5.x when 4.x was nothing but a big headache? And wow, they gave me a whole 2 DAYS to switch an entire backup system over before the OSX plug-in expires. Thanks, you jerks.

    Please, someone, tell me how else to back up 30 computers (os9, osx, Win2K) spread across 6 locations in 3 states. I want nothing more than to stop giving money to Dantz.

  1. Shiffman

    Joined:

    0
    03/27, 11:26am | report spam | Reply | delete

    Way too restrictive

    As usual, Retrospect Express (the backup for the rest of us) has no support for controlling what files aren't backed up. All I want to do is be able to back up my Applications folder but not bother with the 500MB of Office. After all, it's all on the product CD. But RE continues to have the minimalist Selecting control. At least in OS9 you could use Finder tags to restrict the backup. But without those tags it's pretty much all or nothing.

  1. vicorly

    Fresh-Faced Recruit

    Joined: Jan 2001

    0
    03/27, 11:27am | report spam | Reply |

    Retrospect is a bargain!

    Retrospect is a bargain even at twice the cost!!!

    Let me know how much downtime will cost you when you try to rebuild a system without a reliable backup plan in place. Retrospect protects my 12 computers from that nightmare every night at 2:00 AM.

    Victor

  1. \0

    Joined:

    0
    03/27, 11:32am | report spam | Reply | delete

    possible workarounds?

    The first thing that popped into my mind is if it would be possible to run Retrospect Desktop on a normal machine and then buy a single client and run it on the OS X Server machine to do a remote backup. But Retrospect is probably smart enough to disable the client on the OS X Server machine.

    So would it be possible to boot the OS X Server machine under OS 9 or OS X Client and then back it up? You could have an external FireWire drive (like an iPod even) with OS X and Retrospect installed. When it's time to backup, you just bootup under that drive and run the Desktop backup product under OS X Client.

    Under this plan, backups will no longer be automated (goodbye overnight backups) but if you run a lab that can't afford $499 for backup software and just wanna backup the server, this should work okay, and you can always start the backup before you leave. You may even be able to script the reboots and automate some of this at least.

    I can see why Retrospect wants people to run the Workgroup Backup product on Server machines, but there are people out there who run Server but don't want the remote backup capabilities. For one, what if you have a lab of NetBoot Macs which boot from a single Server and you don't care about backing up the client Macs? Should I still be required to buy 20 client licenses if I don't care to use them? And personally, at home, I'm switching my network over to run an OS X Server machine for single login from any Mac in my house. I'd like to backup the OS X Server machine, but h*** if I'm gonna pay $499 just to backup the Server machine!

  1. macimmortal

    Fresh-Faced Recruit

    Joined: Aug 2001

    0
    03/27, 11:44am | report spam | Reply |

    Retrospect is a bargain

    I suppose Retrospect is a bargain if you have money to burn. A bargain to me is booting your OS X box in OS 9, having DiskCopy 6.4 make a compressed/read only image of your OS X partition, and send that image to another Appleshare server for archival purposes. If you have problems, you can use Apple Software Restore to write the image back to your disk. Easy and cheap. Although you really have to evaluate how much your time is worth. My school only has one server, so this method is practical. If you have 12 boxes, you may want to spend the big bucks for Retrospect.

  1. jehrler

    Fresh-Faced Recruit

    Joined: Oct 1999

    0
    03/27, 12:30pm | report spam | Reply |

    More Desktop Backup Probs

    The other thing to notice is that Desktop Backup no longer lets you pull up a client by entering its IP address. While I understand this is to make going to other subnets an exclusive Workgroup feature, it does mean that when Dantz auto client finder fails (as it has with my OSX client, though the OS9 and Win2K show up), you are stuck.

    Two of us have been discussing this on Retro's support forum but no fix yet.

    Note too that the Preview version that worked fine for me was the Workgroup version, so, if like me, you wanted to support Dantz and upgraded, you may just find that you are SOL trying to use the program to back up an OSX client.

  1. testudo

    Forum Regular

    Joined: Aug 2001

    0
    03/27, 12:34pm | report spam | Reply |

    Re: Way too restrictive

    As usual, Retrospect Express (the backup for the rest of us) has no support for controlling what files aren't backed up.

    In RE 4, you could limit what folders copied manually by clicking the preview (?) button (I don't recall what button, but its the second from the bottom and lists the contents of your drive), and then just check off what you want to back up.

    Do they not have this ability anymore? If not, i see no point in me buying it.

  1. jehrler

    Fresh-Faced Recruit

    Joined: Oct 1999

    0
    03/27, 01:33pm | report spam | Reply |

    Finding client fix

    The folks on the forum were able to work out the issue with finding the OSX client from Retrospect Desktop mentioned earlier and will pass along the key.

    You need to go into the Network Preference on the OSX client and the OSX server and make sure the ethernet adapter is at the top (you can drag up and down), then hit apply.

    Then restart the Retrospect Desktop program on the server.

    This probably wasn't important under the OSX preview because if you didn't see the client, you could add by address. Since adding by address is no longer available, getting these adapters to the top is critical.

Show More Comments

Login Here

Not a member of the MacNN forums? Register now for free.

 
close
Photo
toggle

Network Headlines

toggle

Most Popular

MacNN Sponsor

Recent Reviews

MaxUpgrades MaxConnect for 2006-2008 Mac Pro

Nobody outside of Cupertino's privileged bunch knows the future of the Mac Pro line for sure. Despite Apple's reluctance to tell us wh ...

Brother HL-3170CDW LED Printer

We've mentioned before that we are far from a paperless society. For now, at least, there are tasks that require a piece of paper for ...

HTC One

It is hard to overstate just how critically important the HTC One is to the Taiwanese company’s fortunes. Despite its alarming decline ...

toggle

Most Commented

 

Popular News