> dantz needed to rewrite retrospect - instead they tried to take the easy way out
Well, uh, yeah. That's what I said. But the "easy" way in 1999 was presented (by Apple) as the best way, when from a business standpoint it was important (for Dantz and for Mac users) to have Retrosect available when OS X shipped. It wasn't until 10.2 that it was even possible to completely backup/restore an OS X machine (due to an issue with how symbolic links worked in previous versions), but Dantz didn't have a crystal ball back in the 20th Century.
> retrospect's failure rate on restores
Do you have statistics on this? Or are you pulling it out of your ass?
> the growing number of issues
Actually, the "issues" have been pretty much the same all along. OS specific changes that prevented Retrospect from running (ie FileFault) were addressed, as were _some_ important features (breaking it's older Terabyte imit, Unicode support (of a sort), etc).
> what backup system doesn't allow multiple backup sets?
Ones that use a file's "backed up" tag to identify it as having been copied.
> if a client or user asks for a restore, they tell us where the file was and what day they want the restore done from.
What if they don't know? Can the backup administrator get a list of files from a specific directory? Can the backup be searched on various file attributes? Can the contents of the backup be searched without the tapes being online? (I really don't know in the case of bru; I'm just asking)
> bru uses a very well proven and refined toolset that's been used heavily on the unix side for many years.
I'm sure it's robust, and I'm sure I'll be using it soon enough. But it will be difficult to discard those features unique to Retrospect, including Macintosh stuff like recognition of Finder labels and type/creator codes. Will bru match existing files in an archive (I haven't used the program, so I don't know the actual nomenclature) so that identical files that live in multiple locations (or on multiple machines) are only copied once?
> that being said, the mac osx gui is maturing slowly but surely. i for
> one would rather hedge my bets on a modern application that has a maturing
> gui than an old application that's little more than a cash cow for a
> company that lies through it's teeth. "we're working on a new mac
> retrospect"...yeah, and bats fly out my ass.
I don't think Retrospect for Macintosh has been a cash cow since 2002. Slow Windows sale saw a restructuring of Dantz in 2003, but I'd guess that Mac sales haven't been robust for quite a while. I also don't think you're hedging your bet; you're betting the farm.
I haven't heard any public pronouncements of a pending new version since the EMC takeover; Larry Zulch posted on their mailing list in February, 2005, about them working on unifying their code, but even that was not a promise. I'm curious what EMCInsignia employee made other promises to you.
I don't intend my first-ever Slashdot post to be flame war. There will be a revision of Retrospect when Leopard comes out (as noted on their support Forum), but it will probably be the last one. Hopefully they'll improve their client software, so users who are willing to suffer with a Windows box in order to have Retrospect's feature set can do so for Macintosh clients (without Rosetta). And I'll look at bru at Expo, where I'll ask to see a demonstration of how easy it is to find and restore folders/files across multiple backup archives even if the owner of those files is a little confused about names, dates and location.
Without doubt, Retrospect 5.0.x, 5,1.x, 6.0.x and 6.1.x have all been Carbon apps. Apple promised Dantz that OS X would ship sooner then it did, so Dantz made the early decision to move faster with Carbon then it could have moved with Cocoa. Unsurprisingly, OS X slipped, but the chance was lost and they were stuck with LaunchCFMApp.
"retrospect layers incrementals onto the full backup file" has limited meaning (as tape backups are not really files), but why is needing two different files/tapes inherently better? If the incremental bru file gets corrupted, you don't have your most recent version. If the full backup file gets corrupted, you can't do a full restore.
Retrospect's matching technology allows the maintaining of multiple Backup Sets, each capable of a full or partial restore, using Snapshots for time selection. Redundancy is good, and Retrospect allows for it.
The patents that Dantz received (now owned by EMC) keep the program unique, and no other backup software has the feature set that Retrospect does.
But alas, Retrospect for Mac OS does indeed seemed doomed. EMCInsignia will have no booth at Macworld in January 2007, and I hold out little hope that we'll ever see a rewritten version of the program to provide features that have been lacking since 5.0.201 first shipped.
Pulled out backup CD and fired up Retrospect. It complained that it couldn't restore because it couldn't read the catalog (the exact error, I don't recall). The disk was fine. It mounted and disk utilities didn't complain about anything. Thought that maybe the newest version would somehow help. Bought the latest version online only to have the same problem. Your description implies that you don't know how the program works (or how to work the program).
Retrospect keeps its data on media seperate from its catalog of the data. You need both to restore.
Happily, if you have the Members of your Backup Set, you can rebuild the Catalog and Restore as expected.
Retrospect has many flaws; but User Error is just that. RTFM.
Slashdot Mirror
> dantz needed to rewrite retrospect - instead they tried to take the easy way out
Well, uh, yeah. That's what I said. But the "easy" way in 1999 was presented (by Apple) as the best way, when from a business standpoint it was important (for Dantz and for Mac users) to have Retrosect available when OS X shipped. It wasn't until 10.2 that it was even possible to completely backup/restore an OS X machine (due to an issue with how symbolic links worked in previous versions), but Dantz didn't have a crystal ball back in the 20th Century.
> retrospect's failure rate on restores
Do you have statistics on this? Or are you pulling it out of your ass?
> the growing number of issues
Actually, the "issues" have been pretty much the same all along. OS specific changes that prevented Retrospect from running (ie FileFault) were addressed, as were _some_ important features (breaking it's older Terabyte imit, Unicode support (of a sort), etc).
> what backup system doesn't allow multiple backup sets?
Ones that use a file's "backed up" tag to identify it as having been copied.
> if a client or user asks for a restore, they tell us where the file was and what day they want the restore done from.
What if they don't know? Can the backup administrator get a list of files from a specific directory? Can the backup be searched on various file attributes? Can the contents of the backup be searched without the tapes being online? (I really don't know in the case of bru; I'm just asking)
> bru uses a very well proven and refined toolset that's been used heavily on the unix side for many years.
I'm sure it's robust, and I'm sure I'll be using it soon enough. But it will be difficult to discard those features unique to Retrospect, including Macintosh stuff like recognition of Finder labels and type/creator codes. Will bru match existing files in an archive (I haven't used the program, so I don't know the actual nomenclature) so that identical files that live in multiple locations (or on multiple machines) are only copied once?
> that being said, the mac osx gui is maturing slowly but surely. i for
> one would rather hedge my bets on a modern application that has a maturing
> gui than an old application that's little more than a cash cow for a
> company that lies through it's teeth. "we're working on a new mac
> retrospect"...yeah, and bats fly out my ass.
I don't think Retrospect for Macintosh has been a cash cow since 2002. Slow Windows sale saw a restructuring of Dantz in 2003, but I'd guess that Mac sales haven't been robust for quite a while. I also don't think you're hedging your bet; you're betting the farm.
I haven't heard any public pronouncements of a pending new version since the EMC takeover; Larry Zulch posted on their mailing list in February, 2005, about them working on unifying their code, but even that was not a promise. I'm curious what EMCInsignia employee made other promises to you.
I don't intend my first-ever Slashdot post to be flame war. There will be a revision of Retrospect when Leopard comes out (as noted on their support Forum), but it will probably be the last one. Hopefully they'll improve their client software, so users who are willing to suffer with a Windows box in order to have Retrospect's feature set can do so for Macintosh clients (without Rosetta). And I'll look at bru at Expo, where I'll ask to see a demonstration of how easy it is to find and restore folders/files across multiple backup archives even if the owner of those files is a little confused about names, dates and location.
Dave
Without doubt, Retrospect 5.0.x, 5,1.x, 6.0.x and 6.1.x have all been Carbon apps. Apple promised Dantz that OS X would ship sooner then it did, so Dantz made the early decision to move faster with Carbon then it could have moved with Cocoa. Unsurprisingly, OS X slipped, but the chance was lost and they were stuck with LaunchCFMApp.
"retrospect layers incrementals onto the full backup file" has limited meaning (as tape backups are not really files), but why is needing two different files/tapes inherently better? If the incremental bru file gets corrupted, you don't have your most recent version. If the full backup file gets corrupted, you can't do a full restore.
Retrospect's matching technology allows the maintaining of multiple Backup Sets, each capable of a full or partial restore, using Snapshots for time selection. Redundancy is good, and Retrospect allows for it.
The patents that Dantz received (now owned by EMC) keep the program unique, and no other backup software has the feature set that Retrospect does.
But alas, Retrospect for Mac OS does indeed seemed doomed. EMCInsignia will have no booth at Macworld in January 2007, and I hold out little hope that we'll ever see a rewritten version of the program to provide features that have been lacking since 5.0.201 first shipped.
Retrospect keeps its data on media seperate from its catalog of the data. You need both to restore.
Happily, if you have the Members of your Backup Set, you can rebuild the Catalog and Restore as expected.
Retrospect has many flaws; but User Error is just that. RTFM.
Dave