Retrospect is the most trusted name in Mac backup and recovery, with more than two decades of field-tested expertise - protecting Macs and Windows PCs and servers worldwide from data loss due to user error, computer failure or site-wide disasters such as fire, theft or flood.
Features:
Protect servers, business-critical applications, desktops and notebooks with a single, easy to use product.
Manage multiple backup servers remotely from a single screen, easing management for larger installations.
New! Back up to and restore from offsite cloud storage. Use powerful filtering rules to more...
What's New
Version 11.5.3.103:
Versions
Mac console -- 11.5.3.103
Mac engine -- 11.5.3.103
Mac client -- 11.5.2.104
Windows client -- 9.5.0.139.3
Linux client -- 9.5.0.113
Console
Corrected performance issue for very large environments (#5098)
Sources: Tags field in "Summary" no longer shows duplicate tags (#5089)
Retrospect is the most trusted name in Mac backup and recovery, with more than two decades of field-tested expertise - protecting Macs and Windows PCs and servers worldwide from data loss due to user error, computer failure or site-wide disasters such as fire, theft or flood.
Features:
Protect servers, business-critical applications, desktops and notebooks with a single, easy to use product.
Manage multiple backup servers remotely from a single screen, easing management for larger installations.
New! Back up to and restore from offsite cloud storage. Use powerful filtering rules to allow complete local backups, while ensuring only critical data gets copied to the cloud.
Back up Windows, Mac, Linux, Solaris, and NetWare computers with a Mac host computer.
Ensure the security of your data with the highest level of government standard 128- or 256-bit AES encryption and new enhanced link encryption technology.
Monitor backups on-the-fly with free iPhone app and new Growl notifications.
Editions:
Retrospect 10 Multi Server ($1,669.00) - Protects any number of networked Windows, Mac, and Linux servers, desktops, and notebooks from a single host computer running Retrospect. Supports disk and tape storage devices.
Retrospect 10 Single Server Unlimited Clients ($809.00) - Protects one server and any number of networked Windows, Mac, and Linux desktops and notebooks from a single host computer running Retrospect. Additional server client licenses can be purchased to protect more networked Windows, Mac, or Linux servers. Supports disk and tape storage devices.
Retrospect 10 Single Server 20 Clients ($479.00 for basic product, $609.00 with annual support and maintenance) - PProtects one server and up to 20 networked Windows, Mac, and Linux desktops and notebooks from a single host computer running Retrospect. Additional Retrospect Client and server client licenses can be purchased to protect more systems. Supports disk and tape storage devices.
Retrospect 10 Desktop 5-Client ($129.00 for base product, $249.00 with annual support and maintenance) - Protects a single non-server Mac and up to five additional Windows, Mac, and Linux desktops and notebooks.
Version 11.5.3.103:
Versions
Mac console -- 11.5.3.103
Mac engine -- 11.5.3.103
Mac client -- 11.5.2.104
Windows client -- 9.5.0.139.3
Linux client -- 9.5.0.113
Console
Corrected performance issue for very large environments (#5098)
Sources: Tags field in "Summary" no longer shows duplicate tags (#5089)
Sources: Tag name no longer remains in "Summary" after it is removed from the source (#5090)
Past Backups: "Save" button stays in correct location when the "Browse" window is resized (#5096)
Backup Assistant: Block Level Incremental Backup checkbox stays in correct location when the window resized (5093)
Backup/Copy Assistants: Browse and Preview no longer automatically switch the saved rule to "Manual File Selection" (#5094)
Scripts: "Activity Thread" setting was not saved after clicking "Save" in certain scenarios (#5099)
Scripts: Copy script warning updated to "Warning: Destination's contents will be replaced" for clarity (#5095)
Dashboard: fix French translation (#5088)
Engine
"Copy Media Set" now includes all snapshots including those not retrieved (#5082)
Fix grooming issue where in complex scenarios grooming could corrupt files backed up with BLIB (#5116)
Fix grooming and set copy issue where certain scenarios could restore corrupted versions of files backed up with BLIB (#5109)
Known issues with this release
Engine: Customers can encounter the following message in the log during grooming: "grxSearchForPartialFiles: unable to find all dependent partial files for 'file_path'". For large files using Block Level Incremental Backup (BLIB), this indicates that older versions of the file have been groomed out by prior Retrospect releases and are no longer restorable (#5085), but the most recent full/base version and the incremental versions based on it are properly preserved. For files not using BLIB, these messages can be safely ignored, including backups from SQL and Exchange add-ons (#5100).
After Time Machine's been acting up since 10.9, I thought it would be a good idea to check out Retrospect again. Retrospect used to be a trusted, well-rounded backup solution for power users. It has a lot of great features Time Machine lacks, including advertised support for de-duplication, support for Linux and Windows clients, data verification, and powerful scheduling features.
After four days with it, here's what I can say about it:
- Holy hell
- The client's "instant scan" feature takes 50% CPU, constantly, for four days continuously, and had to be disabled via the command line
- The client chewed up almost 1GB of memory
- Clients that weren't added to a backup set reported they were backed up successfully even if they never were- not even a byte
- De-duplication doesn't work at all. I had two clients with 200GB of the same iPhoto folder. Both clients using the same Media Set, the images were copied twice. (Actually, the resulting backup was about 1.5x the size of both clients)
- Even though many clients were on the same network segment, Retrospect could only locate some of them. The rest had to be added manually
- Just the scan before a backup starts took over 2 hours per client- this is before any data is even copied!
- It's expensive. Good software is worth the money- especially for something critical like backup. Unfortunately, it's not remotely worth it.
I hate leaving negative reviews, but Retrospect stinks of abandon-ware, likely on life support until it can be sold to yet another company or put to bed for good.
Retrospect User Discussion
Ratings
Details