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Dantz Launches Retrospect 6.0 for Macintosh


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DANTZ LAUNCHES RETROSPECT 6.0, THE NEW BENCHMARK FOR MACINTOSH BACKUPS

 

Now Protects Mac OS X “Panther” and Xserve RAID, Breaks Terabyte Limit

 

WALNUT CREEK, CA — Jan. 06, 2004 — Dantz® Development Corp. today announces Retrospect® 6.0, the latest version of the number one backup and restore software for the Macintosh®. Retrospect 6.0 now protects Power Mac G4 and G5 computers running Mac OS X “Panther,” backs up Xserve RAIDs hosting multiple terabytes of data, and supports SCSI and Fibre Channel tape libraries.

 

"Dantz was one of the first backup and restore software vendors to support Mac OS X and we are pleased about the release of Retrospect 6.0," said Ron Okamoto, Apple's vice president of Worldwide Developer Relations. "Retrospect 6.0 delivers a reliable and easy to use solution for Mac users who take advantage of the massive storage density and incredible performance of XServe RAID."

 

“Retrospect 6.0 is the culmination of nearly two decades of industry-leading innovation and refinement based on the real-world needs of our customers,” said Tony Barbagallo, VP of Worldwide Marketing at Dantz Development Corp. “With this release, Dantz continues our proud history of protecting the creative intellectual property of Macintosh users.”

 

Business professionals and home users will benefit from the advanced features of Retrospect 6.0:

• No limit to the size of volumes that can be backed up or the amount of data stored in a Backup Set. There is no longer a terabyte limit.

• Support for most SCSI and Fibre Channel tape libraries including features such as import/export, barcode inventory, and more than 128 storage slots.

• Improved user interface to manage drives, tapes, and cleaning tapes.

• Backups to disks can span multiple FireWire or USB hard drives.

• The Retrospect 6.0 product CD also includes Retrospect 5.1 for backing up to a Mac OS 9 computer.

 

What Sets Retrospect Apart

Retrospect is distinguished by its ease of use and its ability to automatically adjust backup operations when protecting networked computers, saving valuable time for backup administrators. Unlike other backup software, Retrospect can perform incremental backups to save time while avoiding flawed restores that incorrectly return previously deleted, renamed and moved files and folders. And Retrospect significantly simplifies the creation and rotation of onsite and offsite sets of backup media to protect against disasters.

 

Availability and Pricing

Retrospect 6.0 will be available in English as an electronic download on January 26, 2004. The boxed product will be in the channel and in Apple stores by mid-February. Dantz Retrospect 6.0 for Macintosh is available in three editions:

• Retrospect Server – Backs up a local Macintosh computer and 100 networked clients, which can include servers. Suggested list price $799. Upgrades are $349.

 

• Retrospect Workgroup – Backs up a local Macintosh computer and 20 networked desktop or notebook clients. Suggested list price $499. Upgrades are $199.

 

• Retrospect Desktop – Backs up one local Macintosh desktop or notebook computer and two networked desktops or notebook clients. Suggested list price $129. Upgrades are $59.95.

 

Client licenses for additional computers and client upgrades are available for Retrospect 6.0, as are Annual Support and Maintenance contracts, which provide unlimited technical support and complimentary upgrades. Customers who have already purchased Annual Support and Maintenance will receive Retrospect 6.0 at no additional cost.

 

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Quote:

DarylF2 said:

This is insane. Being charged for yet another bug-fix upgrade is an insult...

 

I'm seriously considering moving my entire backup system to BRU for Mac OS X (see <
)!

 


 

There was also an announcement of NetVault backup solution for Macs at the Keynote...

 

New competitor? Something to consider...

 

-Ric

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I'm so disappointed by this whole situation. I've used Retrospect for many years, and have recommended it literally dozens of times (and thus helped make more than a few Retrospect sales). But with the recent upgrade fee for 5.1 (which should have been free) and now the release of 6.0 (with another upgrade fee) instead of bug fixes for 5.1, it really appears as if Dantz is forgoing good customer support for increased (short-term) profit.

 

I hope that someone from Dantz lets us know that a Panther-compatible 5.1.xxx bug-fix update will be offered for free for those who don't want to upgrade to 6.0. I don't see this as likely, however.

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Quote:

AmyJ said:

Business professionals and home users will benefit from the advanced features of Retrospect 6.0:

• No limit to the size of volumes that can be backed up or the amount of data stored in a Backup Set. There is no longer a terabyte limit.

• Support for most SCSI and Fibre Channel tape libraries including features such as import/export, barcode inventory, and more than 128 storage slots.

• Improved user interface to manage drives, tapes, and cleaning tapes.

• Backups to disks can span multiple FireWire or USB hard drives.

• The Retrospect 6.0 product CD also includes Retrospect 5.1 for backing up to a Mac OS 9 computer.

 

 


Does this mean that the backup set format has changed? Radically? Is it compatible with the Windows 6.0 format?

 

I presume the last point means that Retro 6 only runs under Mac OS X. Is it further limited to any particular version of Mac OS X?

 

How is the Mac version getting on for parity with the Windows version? What features are in one but not the other?

 

Any further details on the "improved user interface"?

 

Can backups span multiple remote mounted volumes? (i.e. backing up to afp://, smb://, nfs://)? Ditto via ftp? Any support for sftp or ssh?

 

Thanks in advance.

 

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I just upgraded my Powerbook to the latest, which included Panther, and was considering the upgrade from Retro Express 5.0 to Desktop 5.1 at $59.95. Now Dantz announces that Desktop 6.0 will be available starting 26Jan.

 

If I were to upgrade TODAY to 5.1, would the upgrade over to 6.0 be free or would I have to shell over ANOTHER $59.95 in 19 days hence ?

 

JMC

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Also, I'd like to know if any of the following features has been added to 6.0:

 

1) for the hidden "speed threshold" preference: Has it been modified to *only* affect backups and not restores?

 

2) is there any new hidden (or not) preferences that will defer a "backup server" backup if the client has more than "X" gigs of data to back up?

 

3) Has anything been added to allow "removable media" to be exempt toggling a backup server backup (example, if you add a client with the default settings, if the client puts in a "zip" disk, that becomes a new volume and "backup server" will initiate a backup.)

 

4) Anything about being able to close/backup Outlook on Windows clients?

 

 

These are important to us when deciding to upgrade from 5.1 or not. Thanks!

 

- Steve

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This upgrade is much more then a "bug fix" update. It contains many features customers have been requesting for a long time.

 

 

 

1) When writing to a hard disk, we can now span to multiple destination disks.

 

 

 

2) Library Bar Code Support

 

 

 

3) Cleaning tape support for libraries

 

 

 

4) Panther Support

 

 

 

5) Remembering tape names in a library after relaunch

 

 

 

6) Test option when looking for clients on the network

 

 

 

7) Greatly improved performance

 

 

 

8) Fiberchannel support for tape drives

 

 

 

Plus Unicode support and the fix for the TB limit issues.

 

 

 

 

 

Also, Dantz offers annual support and maintenance program which gives you unlimited upgrades for 1 year and unlimited technical support. This is priced very close to the upgrade prices.

 

 

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Quote:

Mayoff said:

This upgrade is much more then a "bug fix" update. It contains many features customers have been requesting for a long time.

 

4) Panther Support

 

 


 

Could you elaborate on what this means? How is fast user switching handled for instance? Could you itemise what, currently 'broken' in Panther, is 'fixed'?

 

 

Quote:

 

7) Greatly improved performance

 

 


 

Details? Examples? What got improved to make performance better? Faster compression? Multithreading? Does performance improve on low end machines or just high end?

 

Thanks in advance.

 

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One area customers of 6.0 will be pleasantly surprised is in performance improvements. We're still benchmarking. Some preliminary results:

 

        File backups more than 50% faster

        Backups to HD more than twice as fast

        Tape compares more than 50% faster

 

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<<Also, Dantz offers annual support and maintenance program which gives you unlimited upgrades for 1 year and unlimited technical support. This is priced very close to the upgrade prices. >>

 

Exactly how much is it to upgrade from Express to 6 with an anuual support plan. The upgrade price on the web site says $60 for upgrade but $240 for upgrade with annual support. I assume this is not what is meant by "priced very close".

Thanks

 

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Is it possible to write a selector which will match

 

/Users/*/Music/

 

that I can use across backup sets - some of which backup the whole volume and some of which backup sub-volumes?

 

--

 

Re: pricing - it appears the upgrade is $60 but the annual contract is $240 - that is a factor of 4 and not "very close." Is there some other pricing option that I am missing?

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But some of your customers don't want to pay for features that they may not need-- we just want 5.1 to work with Panther. I really dislike your "bait and upgrade" tactic.

 

Dantz has been generating enormous ill-will ever since it released an OS X-compatible version of Retrospect. This will just make things worse.

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Two questions:

 

1. I have an annual maintenance contract. When will I get the complimentary upgrade and will this be a CD or just an electronic copy? We need the CD to be able to do a proper emergency restore.

 

2. Does "Panther support" now include the scrollwheel on my mouse? This has been missing for awhile.

 

Thanks.

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Like most in this forum, I've been using Retrospect since it came out. It was a GREAT product until 5.0. Now, I can understand some of 5.0's problems being Apple's fault with OS X, but 5.1 should have been a free update to users since it mostly just fixed bugs.

 

However, I'm glad to see that Retrospect 6.0 is an OS X only app. Maybe this will make it a more reliable product. Are any of these new features of Retrospect 6.0?

 

 

Can the client workstation finally be shutdown after backup?

 

With the cleaning tape support - does it actually work (retrospect 6.0 on Windows still has issues with this)? Everytime Retrospect looks for another tape it dies when it get to the "cleaning tape" slot.

 

Does Retrospect 6.0 support multiple tape drives in the Sony AIT LIB 168?

 

Can Retrospect 6.0 perform multiple backups @ the same time?

 

Best

 

Jeff Lucia

 

 

 

 

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Quote:

Jeff Lucia said:

Like most in this forum, I've been using Retrospect since it came out. It was a GREAT product until 5.0. Now, I can understand some of 5.0's problems being Apple's fault with OS X, but 5.1 should have been a free update to users since it mostly just fixed bugs.

 

 


 

Great point. I have two questions:

 

1. Why is the upgrade price from 5.0 the same as from 5.1? Shouldn't 5.1 owners be given a little more incentive?

 

2. Since 5.0, I've been unable to backup to afp file servers because Retrospect runs as "root," yet the server requires my usual login. Other backup programs have the ability to run as the user as well as "root." When will this be added?

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That happened with me when I upgraded to 5.0 and 5.1 came out. When I spoke with Dantz, they told me that as long as I provide proof of purchase within a month of 5.1 annoucment, they would send me 5.1 for free. If you got it two weeks before they should make good on it.

 

Jeff

 

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Jeff Lucia said:

That happened with me when I upgraded to 5.0 and 5.1 came out. When I spoke with Dantz, they told me that as long as I provide proof of purchase within a month of 5.1 annoucment, they would send me 5.1 for free. If you got it two weeks before they should make good on it.

 

 


I just called regarding the upgrade to 6.0 (I own 5.0 but just installed a new DVD-R that 5.0 doesn't recognize but 5.1 does) and they told me that so long as I buy 5.1 within 30 days of 6.0's actual introduction, that I could get a free upgrade. Notice that's 30 days from purchase to 6.0's availability to purchase, not from purchase to introduction. I think the OP should call Dantz to see what he can work out.

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