779667a8-72b4-4497-8b3a-b920e4a2b806 Posted November 8, 2011 Report Share Posted November 8, 2011 I use Lion Server at home for a Media Server on a Mac Mini and I have to pay a ridicules price to upgrade. This is not a work server its a home server! Why can't you have fair pricing for a home server or the desktop version that you can use on a home server (desktop with 3-4 clients). This is insane!!!! A lot of people have this same setup but are not going to put out that kind of money. You guys need to do something with this pricing, you are going to lose a lot of customers that have the same setup. I mean all you had to do is look at Apple product line up and see the Mac mini server and even the Mac Pro used in home networks for media servers or for controlling all there iOS devices. Like I said there are a lot of other backup programs out there that people will switch to because for price for a home server. It just pissed me off!!!!! +1 for this. I stopped using Retrospect 8 on my older Mac mini & switched to Crashplan. Given my previous long history with Retrospect, I'd be interested in returning to it, but the price for it on a new Mac mini (home) server backing up just two laptops is prohibitive because... oh wait, there is no upgrade path. I have to buy the server edition at full price. For a home network to back up two computers. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
51ae86ee-d35a-4c46-b879-c3b8399377a3 Posted November 8, 2011 Report Share Posted November 8, 2011 +1 for this. I stopped using Retrospect 8 on my older Mac mini & switched to Crashplan. Given my previous long history with Retrospect, I'd be interested in returning to it, but the price for it on a new Mac mini (home) server backing up just two laptops is prohibitive because... oh wait, there is no upgrade path. I have to buy the server edition at full price. For a home network to back up two computers. Especially since the upgrade to the server version is way more than the cost to upgrade to 10.7 server (which appears to be shifting from a fully featured server to a smaller, simpler package of common services). Retorspect should be following suit to keep pace: home users shouldn't have to pay a huge amount to backup a minimally different machine. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
db159aa9-f16c-4929-aec3-89c1e0a6618d Posted November 11, 2011 Report Share Posted November 11, 2011 "If you have an expired ASM contract you can renew it under a temporary promotion. That renewal price is lower then the software upgrade price and it gives you support for a year and the upgrade." How do I sign up? How can I tell if my current ASM is expired or not? Thoughts: I have used Retro since the late 90's. There is no way I can justify $900 to my boss for an upgrade. I have seen no screen caps, and seen no documentation. LEts be honest, Retrospect is not enterprise-class software. I didn't spend 900 for Retrospect 8 when I bought it new! How can the upgrade to version 9 be $900? I have found Retrospect 8 to be flakey - especially regarding grooming, SAN/NAS space allocation, notifications, etc. I just want it to be more stable. Sure, the new features sound cool, but I need a bulletproof Mac-base backup solution I can depend on. That means top-tier support, current, accurate documentation, powerful admin tools, etc. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
db159aa9-f16c-4929-aec3-89c1e0a6618d Posted November 11, 2011 Report Share Posted November 11, 2011 (edited) So yes this version does contain bug fixes but it also includes some really great features, all of which are not available in the Windows product (yet). Translation: "Let's let the Mac OS X customers discover the bugs before we roll these features into the Windows version". Perhaps I am jaded. Most customers probably do not care if the features are exclusive to the Mac or not. This isn't the 90's anymore. I don't care about Windows VS Mac feature races (Mac exclusivity is not a "feature"). I work in a heterogeneous enterprise shop with Linux, Mac, Windows, etc. All of them have strengths and weaknesses. Granted, there are new features in 9.0, but most of them are not very compelling to me (i.e.; WebDAV is not that great in my opinion but may be useful to some of us). Bottom line: I just want bug fixes that Roxio/EMC/Dantz has been promising. My email notifications, Media Set management and other exisiting features have been broken (or buggy) for over year. Edited November 14, 2011 by dstranathan Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ca592bf2-8343-4a1e-bc72-e0045376119c Posted November 14, 2011 Report Share Posted November 14, 2011 Well I am going on approx 6 days with no response from Sales team to discuss options on upgrades. No matter what extension I call, I go to a voicemail. Insert frowny face here: there we go. Guess I will try to email, however i would much prefer to talk to someone directly. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
db159aa9-f16c-4929-aec3-89c1e0a6618d Posted November 14, 2011 Report Share Posted November 14, 2011 (edited) Update: My vendor found the right person to speak with at Roxio - Many customers (including myself) can just renew their ASM and then will qualify for a free upgrade to 9.0. Others may already qualify. Apparently with all of the structure changes at EMC/Roxio they neglected to notify A LOT of customers (and resellers!) about their renewal options. Edited November 15, 2011 by dstranathan Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ca592bf2-8343-4a1e-bc72-e0045376119c Posted November 15, 2011 Report Share Posted November 15, 2011 Update: My vendor found the right person to speak with at Roxio - Many customers (including myself) can just renew their ASM and then will qualify for a free upgrade to 9.0. Others may already qualify. Apparently with all of the structure changes at EMC/Roxio they neglected to notify A LOT of customers (and resellers!) about their renewal options. thanks dstranathan. I would still like to talk to someone because I have 2 separate server licenses (server dont see each other, one on local lan, and one on DMZ) so I need to know if I need to purchase upgrade to ASM twice? I would also love an official quote for upper management to approve. I have been lazy on emailing in but still aggravated I have yet to receive a call back... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kcaldera Posted November 15, 2011 Report Share Posted November 15, 2011 It is true that Retrospect 9 is a paid upgrade, but keep in mind that this version does contain some pretty major feature changes. For the very first time client users and initiate a backup and can fire off a restore and see the progress in real time. Saving time for the backup administrator. In addition we have added better email notification compatibility and AES 256 encryption for client backups. Then we add support for Webdav. So yes this version does contain bug fixes but it also includes some really great features, all of which are not available in the Windows product (yet). Desktop users also get additional clients in the upgrade. For any customer that has an active ASM contract, you qualify for a free upgrade. If you have an expired ASM contract you can renew it under a temporary promotion. That renewal price is lower then the software upgrade price and it gives you support for a year and the upgrade. -Yes, and Retro 8 contained some major upgrades as compared to Retro 6, but Retro 8 still turned out to be junk. So, this argument does not float when it comes to getting people to pay more money for a product that did not work to begin with. The problem is that we were sold a bill of goods that never panned out. Retro 6 may have been feature lite, but it work, and worked well. Just because the package was redesigned and given bright new colors, does not mean the product is any good. I have struggled with Retro 8 for two years now and have yet to be satisfied in the least. We keep hearing that updates are going to be released and bugs fixed, but you may as well tell me the "chupacabra" has been captured alive and well for everyone to see. It seems to me that the ball was dropped with Retro 8, and dropped hard. I still have been unable to understand why Retro 6 worked, but the same could not be done with Retro 8? Why Retro 7 for Windows is great, but we can't have the same type of reliability on the Mac side? It looks like EMC and now Roxio are pulling out plays from Microsoft's book on how to get suckers like us to keep paying for junk software. If you don't upgrade to Retro 9 you will be SOL because they are going to completely stop supporting Retro 8 anyway. Having to pay for an upgrade to a product that never worked right to begin with, is down right fraudulent! my 2 cents... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
scsctech Posted November 17, 2011 Report Share Posted November 17, 2011 (edited) I think by the many many posts I have done on both this forum and the former dantz forum shows that I really think version 8 was completely flawed from the beginning. We, as customers, paid EMC to beta test this product and for all of our hard work and money, they now want us to pay again to get the release product. The worst thing is that the trial testing I have done on my sandbox machine still shows glitches and annoying slowdowns that were present in version 8. I really dont see much improvement yet. This really puts me between a rock and a hard place. I can spend $1000 to upgrade flawed software and basically operate status quo, or I can pay upwards of $12,000 to move to a real enterprise backup software like NetVault or TimeNavigator. As much as I hate going to my executives with a bill in the 5 digits, I would actually prefer that to dealing with this software much longer. My recommendation to everyone in this forum who honestly feels betrayed by Retrospect is to file a formal complaint with the BBB, or if you really want to play hardball, class action lawsuit. Edited November 17, 2011 by SCSC_TECH Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
twflynch Posted November 18, 2011 Report Share Posted November 18, 2011 I too have been waiting patiently for bug fixes - network communication errors (very clean new cat6 house cabling), very slow startup of the console, many configuration corruptions and subsequent reconfiguration (200 clients), restores that don't work, empty container (no volumes), -540 errors, dissappearing clients, wrong client, etc. I use retrospect to recover as the last resort, it usually doesn't work. I can't teach my tech to take over administration because it is so flakey, impossible to explain all of the contingencies to her. So now I have to shell out $900 to see if the bugs have been fixed? I don't need new features, don't use the "cloud", I just need a backup solution that works. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
f30e6e60-a263-4d69-8f60-c92703669308 Posted November 19, 2011 Report Share Posted November 19, 2011 So now I have to shell out $900 to see if the bugs have been fixed? Well, you could pay for it first and then try it and see if it works for you. Or, you could pay nothing by simply filling out a web form with a valid email address. You'll get a full function time limited license code to use for your testing. Choice is yours. Dave Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
prl Posted November 19, 2011 Report Share Posted November 19, 2011 (edited) Well, you could pay for it first and then try it and see if it works for you. Or, you could pay nothing by simply filling out a web form with a valid email address. You'll get a full function time limited license code to use for your testing. Choice is yours. Dave From Steve Maser's post in reply to my question about running Retro 8 and 9 side-by-side, you'd probably need a spare server with a spare backup device if you wanted to test Retro 9 while you continued to use Retro 8 for your routine backups. Which you'd probably want to do for any professional situation. Edited November 19, 2011 by prl Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hippy Posted November 19, 2011 Report Share Posted November 19, 2011 Once again the very valid points that Fred and others have raised about concerns we have about the way in which this entire thing has been handled have been ignored. It appears that no one actually cares about how we feel, what we want, (NOT NEW FEATURES, BUT THE CORE BACKUP TO WORK), we just have to pay. If not, then nothing will be said, or we will be directed to the upgrade web page. Now with some of the concerns that are being raised here about V9 even if we were being treated right & these issues were being addressed, I'd still have grave concerns about paying for an upgrading as it appears that some of the issues with V8.2 are STILL present in V9!! As soon as I have capital available, I will be moving to a new product, I can't continue to support a company that has utterly no concern for it's Customers, and of course run with out backups for much longer. I wish those of you who are sticking with it the best of luck, and hope that Retrospect Inc do in fact manage to turn this around, how ever unlikely that appears to be. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
77bb2dbb-e496-413b-9050-bfd4b68b3a4c Posted November 21, 2011 Report Share Posted November 21, 2011 I bought v8.3 in May of 2011. This version has a bug that it cannot backup client partitions with names less than four characters. All of my clients have a "u" partition that I need to back up. I reported my problems and the bug was located, and I have been waiting for six months for this bug to be fixed. No update has been available during this time. I just downloaded the trial v9.0, and I see that it has the same bug. Version 8.3 has been essentially useless to me because of this bug. What should I do now, pay for the 9.0 upgrade so that it sets useless on my server while I hope that the bug gets fixed? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
77bb2dbb-e496-413b-9050-bfd4b68b3a4c Posted November 22, 2011 Report Share Posted November 22, 2011 I bought v8.3 in May of 2011. Oops, typo. That should be v8.2. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JohnAHawkins Posted November 23, 2011 Report Share Posted November 23, 2011 Not trying to pile on, but I, too, have been a loyal Retrospect user for at least 16 years, maybe longer. I have endured, and paid dearly for upgrading and maintaining my multi-user, multi-server, and multi-platform licenses. We went from Dantz (seems like there was one before Dantz), then to EMC and got gouged and got next to nothing in terms of software improvements and support. Not to mention the cost of changing devices, SCSI cards, tape drives, hard drives, etc., as new software upgrades orphaned older devices. Version 6 was solid, but was beginning to flake out with Leopard server. When I found that Roxio had bought Retrospect, I was very happy and optimistic. Finally a solid, reliable software company for my long-time, butt-saving Retrospect. I jumped on the version 8 upgrade and was given an entirely new interface to have to learn, and repeated failures during backup. A new RAID backup hard drive and bug fixes with 8.2 and I have been lucky enough that my data is getting backed up. The backups still fail on my server volumes, but at least my Promise RAID array is getting backed up. I totally agree that we were promised on these discussion boards that the bugs would be fixed. I guess we were not cynical enough to realize they would charge us tier 1 pricing to fix them. In any other business, you would go to jail for fraud for knowingly selling a defective product or service and then charging to fix it. Since software has the license model, they get away with it. I have downloaded version 9 and got the trial key, and I don't really see anything different. The email notices work, but they worked for a while in version 8. The granularity of the email notices does not seem to be addressed. I had to turn off error notifications in v8 because I would get spammed when the thing would crash and burn in the night. Nothing like having your backup fail, and waking up to 200 spam error messages from Retrospect. I guess Growl is supposed to fix that. Things are so bad for me with v8, that I pulled all scripts backing up any computer except my servers and went to Time Machine backups to USB drives for all client machines, and my email server. We'll see if the OSX server volumes backup tonight. When I got the notice for a trial version for a paid upgrade, I figured there would be some tiered pricing. I was shocked to learn that v8 users get no different pricing than v6 users. This really is a slap in the face to me personally. I went out on a limb with Roxio when they bought Retrospect and joined them on the version 8 upgrade. My thanks for helping support their efforts instead of limping through on version 6 or changing vendors? Not one freaking penny of a discount. I was expecting $250, maybe even $500. I am absolutely floored that it is $1,000 (by the time I add 7% state sales tax, it's over a thousand), and it is the same price tier as v6 users. As for the touted new features, I have three comments. First, the old features don't work, so I have little faith that the new ones will be trouble free. Second, I don't really need any of the new features right now. Maybe I'll work into them, but none of them are things that I have desperately been waiting for. I just want the program to work reliably. Third, some of them aren't really new. Pre v8 Retrospect has long had the ability for clients to issue "back-up now" commands. Live backups? Big deal. I can set up a script to back up the server 10 times a day if I want. What good is it if the software fails to write to the device? Data encryption? Do that many Retrospect users really use data encryption in their back-ups, and if so, have they been anxiously awaiting 256 bit AES encryption support from Retrospect? I may be wrong, but I don't think enterprise users are the customer base for Retrospect. As stated in other messages, the target group seems to me to be small businesses and home server users. I might pay for this upgrade if it really does fix the bugs, but if I do, this will be the last one. Retrospect has lost my support. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
2927aa2c-bcad-4982-b785-6b9ccc007482 Posted December 3, 2011 Report Share Posted December 3, 2011 There is no way I can justify $900 to my boss for an upgrade. I have seen no screen caps, and seen no documentation. LEts be honest, Retrospect is not enterprise-class software. I didn't spend 900 for Retrospect 8 when I bought it new! How can the upgrade to version 9 be $900? I'm in a similar situation. I work for a university and our group's tech. budget comes straight out of funding which is always a limited resource. When Retrospect was set up (before I started work), it seemed like a really good solution at the right price point. I would have made the decision to use it myself. Sadly, the previous admin and myself have had to deal with all the issues. My worst case scenario? The backups fail, I get fired, and subsequently have two weeks to leave the US. This is something I worry about! I have spent hours upon hours dealing with various issues to keep all the backup plates spinning at once. To top it off, it sounds like v9 still has many bugs. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MAlexander Posted December 5, 2011 Report Share Posted December 5, 2011 Has anyone figured out how to get the temporary promotion for people with expired ASM agreements that Robin Mayoff mentioned in response 2 in this item? I've EMailed and called and haven't gotten anyone to even respond, let alone tell me how to get the promotion. Can anyone verify that the promotion exists? My trial expires soon and I need the upgrade. On a positive note, version 9 does seem to be working better than version 8. There are still some cosmetic bugs, but the serious bugs seem to be mostly gone, at least the ones that I've hit in the past. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hvar Posted December 6, 2011 Report Share Posted December 6, 2011 Has anyone figured out how to get the temporary promotion for people with expired ASM agreements that Robin Mayoff mentioned in response 2 in this item? I've EMailed and called and haven't gotten anyone to even respond, let alone tell me how to get the promotion. Can anyone verify that the promotion exists? My trial expires soon and I need the upgrade. Have you asked a reseller? We had an expired ASM and was able to renew that through a local reseller for far less than a plain upgrade. (I am in Norway, and prices are not comparable to US.) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
henry-in-florida Posted December 6, 2011 Report Share Posted December 6, 2011 I just can't bring myself to she'll out more money to fix broken software product that has caused me more trouble than any other software I can remember. It would seem to me that if retrospect wants to spread the word about a great "new" product, they should get the word on the street going the right direction. I can honestly say I would never recommend v8 of this software. In fact the buggy nature of it has led me to recommend other alternatives on several occasions. I still have Retrospect v6 setup on a dedicated machine and it's the most solid version. Yes I do run v8 now but it's like "don't touch it, it's broken". I too agree with many others who feel that v8 is a broken product that should have received the fixes necessary to make it least stable. Come on, we're talking about a "backup software". And yes i do mean "broken". So instead of fixing something that was obviously broken, retrospect/roxio has chosen to blatantly ignore that fact. Feels like a cut and run. Had the upgrade been closer to a symbolic sum of money, it would have shown a level of "good will" that I would be willing to match. But sadly the upgrade path shows no measurable good will beyond what a normal upgrade for a fully functioning working product is. If I have to use the broken stuff, will not shell out any more, but will endeavor to work around what I know now to be broken rather than use the gee whiz items and the 'sort-of fixed' old features. I use Retro in a secondary mode and feel that the new version is not enough of a fix and more broken new stuff that doesn't justify the product's cost. Having never had an ASM contract, that's also a waste. If/when you guys decide on a maintenance release of Retro 8 (probably never) just fixing the existing issues, let me know. I probably will not be waiting at the phone for it. Said it before and again here, NOT ONE THIN DIME until Retro 8 is 100%! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cf87ab84-c226-4c03-9f9b-e87a74698b95 Posted January 3, 2012 Author Report Share Posted January 3, 2012 Haven't been here in a little while, so just thought I'd check in...has anybody gotten any feedback from Retrospect to suggest that this v8 debacle will be made right? Or is no news (or acknowledgment) still bad news...$900 or so just to get bug fixes? FT Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
prl Posted January 4, 2012 Report Share Posted January 4, 2012 Haven't been here in a little while, so just thought I'd check in...has anybody gotten any feedback from Retrospect to suggest that this v8 debacle will be made right? Or is no news (or acknowledgment) still bad news...$900 or so just to get bug fixes? FT [sarcasm] No, the bug fixes are free. The $900 is for the new features [/sarcasm] Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
51ae86ee-d35a-4c46-b879-c3b8399377a3 Posted January 4, 2012 Report Share Posted January 4, 2012 Haven't been here in a little while, so just thought I'd check in...has anybody gotten any feedback from Retrospect to suggest that this v8 debacle will be made right? Or is no news (or acknowledgment) still bad news...$900 or so just to get bug fixes? FT Well, to be clear- if you had ASM before (I believe that's the requirement) then the cost to renew that for Multi-Server is $260, and that's all you need to do (after you renew, just send in a web ticket and they'll send you the v9 serial). That lower cost was sufficient to get me to buy it and do some extended testing. This isn't a judgement on the value, just a confirmation of the cost and process. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.