Retrospect for Mac

17.5.2.103

17.5.2.103

See all Versions

This has become overpriced crapware. I bought it several months back, carefully considering whether Retrospect was worthy of consideration after they had dropped support for the Mac years back. I used to use it to back up to optical media and a tape drive before (then Dantz) decided to change their catalog format to a backwards-incompatible format, drop optical media support and then dropped Mac support entirely.

Since I've bought it, primarily to back up drives to B2 storage, this app has been nothing but trouble. It loses its settings on quit, doesn't recognize that it has been given full disk access, doesn't start the Engine on startup even though it is checked to do so in Retrospect's System Preferences panel or adding it directly to login items. Directly trying to launch the Engine results in an instant crash. Trying to start Retrospect proper yields a message "connecting to 127.0.0.1" that is an endless loop of nothing happening.

I have spent hours via email and phone support on this piece of garbage. I'm giving the phone support people one more chance tomorrow, then I'm going to ask them to revoke my license and refund my money. Even their support materials show screen shots that are versions and versions of macOS old and their support material is not up to date, especially regarding cloud backups. I've spent 98% of my time with this app troubleshooting instead of backing up. EPIC fail!

I was using ChronoSync to B2, but upload speeds were horrible using that app. I may have to revert to that despite its slowness.

CAVEAT EMPTOR!

Once upon a time.... this was my goto backup protocol. Fast copy to external HD, high degree of file/folder selection/synch/backups etc etc then prog started playing up, dev was less than responsive and prices for single users became silly, so it was bye bye Retrospect. A once-great product that has withered and has been replaced by plenty of better/cheaper/faster apps. Pass on Retrospect and look around for alternatives - plenty of said cheaper/better/faster out there!

For $136, one could purchase ChronoSync •and• Carbon Copy Cloner •and• SuperDuper... plus still have enough cash left over for a burger. -HI-

Uploading to Backblaze B2 is still terrible in 14.5. Speed 1.4 MB/sec on a 500 Mbps line. Both Retrospect and Backblaze Support don't seem to care as I reported these issues to them ages ago and of course nothing has been done about it.

Retrospect has now been working again for some time.

Old time Mac users, will remember Retrospect as the go-to Mac backup program. However, Retrospect fell on hard times as a sequence of new owners seemed more interested in milking revenue from the customer base, than investing in a quality product. There was a period of literally years, where it was junk.

However, now that it has been spun off and is no longer part of some big company, it now is working again, and each new release seems to bring improvements. Hopefully, they will reform their pricing model, which still charges a very hefty premium for backing up any Mac running Apple’s $19.99 server app. Still, it is now, again, a program that you should consider.

I am looking forward to seeing what this new version brings.

Retrospect is really a good backup product. Here is the coupon: http://couponcode0.com/category/vendors/retrospectinc

Works as advertised for *moi*. Minus one star for not sticking with the Instant Scan Off settings (done in the Retrospect Pref Pane nowadays) after updates. Nota Bene: I know there have been problems with the Instant Scan feature, but I have it switched off anyway because it doesn't fit with my work flow.

as a user until version 8, I strongly recommend to avoid using retrospect above version 8. For those looking for an alternative, I chose bacula.org : - designed for tape backup but usable with files/disks - client available for linux/macos/windows (macport client available) - server available for linux/macos , reported to work on windows - free and open-source - very customizable but hard to configure - once properly configured, forget it and use the web ui for restorations / unscheduled backups - fast incrementals, reasonable fulls, fast restores (using disks) - commercial version available with some plugins like incremental vmware/outlook/database backups etc. (i don't use it)

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.

I need tape backup and that's the only reason I use Retrospect. This program has tortured me for years. A backup program that's been plagued with serious bugs from day one. It's shameful. Current version 10.2: email notifications still broken randomly loses ability to connect to clients media sets say they are "in use" when they are not RetroISA uses more than 100% if CPU and has to be disabled via command line on clients (no other way) randomly, some folders get backed up multiple times with no de-duplication, which runs quickly through tapes