Jump to content

Does Retrospect 15 support backup of APFS volumes?


Recommended Posts

I finally updated one of my Macs to Mojave with APFS. All my other Macs here are stil HFS+. I am currently still running Retrospect 15 on my server machine with Sierra. Can this setup backup APFS volumes? Have there been improvements or fixes in Retrospect 16 that relate to APFS? Thanks!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

karma, you bet your bippy there there have been APFS-related improvements and fixes in Retrospect Mac 16!

First, it's Searching the Retrospect Website is Fundamental time. :rolleyes:  You should start with the Retrospect Mac Cumulative Release Notes here, beginning going down from the top with "Engine: Scanning faster on APFS volumes" for Mac 16.0.0.189.  In practice that refers to the problem—described in the thread ending in this post—other administrators had with Instant Scan for APFS in Retrospect Mac 15.6.1. 

I recommend that—after upgrading your license code per the next paragraph—you install the latest version of Retrospect Mac 16 on your "backup server" machine (mine is still running Sierra) and your Mojave-running "client" machine, and then Remove and re-Add on your Console's Source panel the Client for that "client" machine.  After you re-Add, make sure in Options that Instant Scan for that machine is un-checked.  In each of your applicable Scripts, you will then have to re-checkmark that "client" in the Source pane and—after clicking the Save button—drag that "client" into its desired backup sequence in the Summary pane.

Since a view of your posts shows you upgraded to Retrospect Mac 15 in February 2019, you are AFAIK entitled to a free upgrade to Retrospect Mac 16.  I recommend that you phone Retrospect Sales, although you may be able to request the upgraded license code in an e-mail.  :)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Thank you for the information and the link to that lengthy previous discussion.

One thing I am concerned about: as mentioned in Support End-of-Life Announcement for Mac OS X 10.3, 10.4, and 10.5, I have one machine running 10.4.11 that I still would like to be able to backup and access backups from; unfortunately I have some old apps and data in use that require running in Classic (!). I think you mentioned in an earlier post that you also had some ancient machines, so how do you deal with it? Is there some way to have both 15 and 16 installed, and just use 15 for the 10.4 Mac?

Also, if I stay on Retrospect 15, and backup an AFPS volume, if I disable Instant Scan for that volume will it at least work well enough to use it? I didn't digest all of the details in that earlier post yet...

Link to comment
Share on other sites

karma,

I do indeed have a Digital Audio G4 booting OS X 10.3.9 (I couldn't afford a 10.4-compatible ATTO SCSI card) on a SCSI drive I added, and Mac OS 9.1 on its two ATA drives.  When I upgraded to Retrospect Mac 16 I decided the easiest thing to so was to backup the G4 weekly using Retrospect Mac 6.1—which I installed on the SCSI drive—onto my still-working HP DAT 72 tape drive.

If that hadn't worked I would have used Retrospect Mac 15 on my "cheesegrater" Mac Pro's spare third HDD to be the "backup server" for the G4's drives using the Legacy Client.  However I would have either had to buy 3 more portable USB3 HDDs to be used in rotation as destination Media Sets, or to take the chance that Media Set format hasn't changed between Retrospect Mac 15 and 16. 

That would have been a chance worth taking, since I don't use the Retrospect 16 Storage Group feature.  However re-booting my Mac Pro to run Retrospect Mac 15 would have been a nuisance, and I can run Retrospect Mac 6.1 on my G4 in parallel with the Retrospect Mac 16 LAN backup of my MacBook Pro.  Doing so actually speeds up the elapsed time for my Saturday Recycle backup routine, although the 3-hour LAN backup of my G4 drives has been replaced by a 5-hour tape backup (the tape drive is slower than my LAN, and my Compare phases—an absolute necessity when backing up to tape—are byte-by-byte instead of MD5-digest)

You'll have to read that old thread more thoroughly than I'm prepared to, but I don't think either of the European administrators participating in it tried disabling Instant Scan in Retrospect Mac 15 for their APFS drives.  If that works it might slow down your backup of the APFS drive by about 10%, but I'm not prepared to test it out—especially to find out if it works.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

Loading...
×
×
  • Create New...