[slider]

I would like to hear recommendations of back-up software. I am thinking of getting retrospect, but I don't really know anything about it of any other back-up software. Any input would be greatly appreciated.

[bil207]

I use Retrospect Express and it has really helped me organize my backups. I now have two dependable sets that I alternately backup to at the end of each day. There is also Copy Agent by Connectix which you may want to consider.

[Jim Retzner]

I use Retrospect Express 4.1E and make a complete backup of my hard disk every two weeks using a 250 meg Zip drive. The 250 drive with 250 cartridges works much more quickly than the 100 meg cartridges. I make back ups of specific files e.g. Quicken whenever I use it and keep the cartridge in a fire-resistant file box.

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[MacMerc.com]

Retrospect in its various forms seems to be *the* way to go if you have the means to acquire it. It will allow you to back up to virtually any media and features programmable schedules and backup criteria. The only drawback I've experienced is that some people will expect to be able to open files off their backup media in the Finder as if they were just copied to the media directly. Retrospect uses its own proprietary compression and encoding software and therefore the backups can only be retrieved via Retrospect itself. It's not a flaw in the program, if anything its a flaw in people's expectations of it.



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Rick Yaeger:
Macintosh
Mercenary
[email protected]
www.macmerc.com
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[Gregg]

I use Retrospect Express as well. Shortly after I got it, Iomega came out with a backup program they sell with their Zip drives. I forget the name of it. Apparently no one looking in on this thread uses it...

[MacMerc.com]

Iomega software and drivers have not proven themselves to be dependable, IMHO. I cannot recommend Copy Machine (the Iomega back-up software previously mentioned) for emergency back-up purposes for the simple reason that at any given time the application or catalog may corrupt, newer updated drivers may cripple it or Iomega might just up and decide not to support it anymore. This is the behaviour I have observed regarding their other products.
Dantz promotes Retrospect as its flagship and has been doing so for as long as I can remember. In fact, I have an old version (1.3c) that was built for Mac OS 7 and worked fine under Mac OS 8.6 (haven't tried it on 9.0.4 yet). It's a darn fine piece of work.



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Rick Yaeger:
Macintosh
Mercenary
[email protected]
www.macmerc.com
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[Gregg]

I think Copy Machine is designed to copy the contents of one zip disk onto another. There's another Iomega app for backups. It's Quik something. I'll have to look at home, if I remember.

[WDL]

I do double backups on two Macs using Retrospect and Zips.

Never a problem.

WDL

[fmalloy]

Yes, Retrospect seems to be the standard, but its far from perfect - I had a problem where every backup would fail verification (CD-R) and I tried many backup sets. I knew the drive was OK. I traced the problem to a bug in Retrospect where it wasn't properly splitting large files across CDs, corrupting the disk! I contacted Dantz and they reproduced the problem on their test CD-R (same drive as mine). Apparently, it only happens on certain CD-R drives (mine is a Teac/Smart and Friendly, which is supposed to be supported). They did not tell me when it would be fixed.

Beware!

[Giles Booth]

Iomega's CopyMachine is designed to do a kind of backup, more to synchronise the contents of particular folders with a backup Zip rather than backing up a whole drive, though.

But as has already been stated, there a big problems with Iomega's software - I had so many problems with freezes at startup when I got my USB hub that I almost went crazy. After deleting all the Iomega software and extensions my system worked fine.

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http://www.othermachines.org

[josntme]

I use "Simple Backup". I have Retrospect but I like simple Backup and its as its name says, simple.

Its shareware and can be found on version tracker.