EAN  Started out on the Mac platform decades ago. It was great then, but is now hopelessly obsolete and suffering in a PC-developer environment.

While the enterprise-class versions of Retrospect are still worth a look, for a single Mac (all the Express version can manage) get the free Carbon Copy Cloner or the worth-every-penny Super Duper! which is a little bit faster.  
(Version 6.1.138)

SLUGWASH  When one can purchase a 2Tb drive for £359, it is a bit remiss of Retrospect that it can only recognise 1Tb on a removable partition  
(Version 6.1.126)

BITRAN  I just bought an Iomega 500 gig drive for a mac mini.

the harddrive works fine I connected it by firewire. A OK up to this point. next the software install for retrospective. thats how far I got, I installed the software and then tried to start the software double clicked on the Icon .....nothing

tried to restart the computer went through that process a number of times. nothing still after a few more attempts gave up. I am no longer willing to spend hours trying to setup software that is not made for the mac. been there done that and there are too many manufacturers of great programs for the mac and exclusive to the mac, to have to depend on a manufacturer who can't seem to get it right. no wonder it is a give away only with hardrive storage devices my recomendation is try other great programs for the mac and remember the reason you use a mac. because it is NOT windows.   
(Version 6.1.126)

ANGSTA  Bought an Acomdata E5 hard drive bundled with Retrospect Express to back up the data on my Mac Powerbook.

Can't calculate how many hours of irreplaceable time I wasted struggling to understand its arcane operation and the gibberish that passes for instructions before I came to my senses, read the reviews on MacUpdate, discovered that its critics are legion and found a user-friendly product (SuperDuper!)

The more egregious problems: Retrospect Express creates its own directory. It takes over the entire hard drive, and inexplicably renames it as the backup set. Then when I try to add archived files I get an error message. For sheer gratuitous frustration it's hard to beat the "device status" window. Spent hours -- HOURS! -- trying to get the external hard drive to show, before I discovered, buried deep in the manual, the information that external hard drives don't show up in the Device Status window.

Retrospect Express is a black hole of productivity.

I am celebrating just being rid of that stupid software. Well rid.

Thank you, MacUpdate. Thank you, Shirt Pocket, developers of SuperDuper!  
(Version 6.1.126)