CallMeDave Posted March 31, 2010 Report Share Posted March 31, 2010 Retro 6.1 server runs great on my 10.6.2 server it is even capable of doing bootable backups of 10.6 clients Well, if you have tested full boot-volume client backup/restores on Snow Leopard successfully, understand that you lost the system file compression that Apple introduced with 10.6. I don't know how this might impact a Snow Leopard machine over time, but I'd not be happy to use a system modified that way. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jlbrown Posted April 6, 2010 Report Share Posted April 6, 2010 I'm getting the same thing here. Server is a Mac Mini Server running OS X 10.6.3 Server. CPU usage on server is less than 50%. Windows client on latest version running at about 30 MB/m. It's taken 18 hours to transfer 40GB (13,882 files). Client is running on Vista Ultimate Service Pack 2, 64-bit. Mac clients typically get greater than 100MB/m times. Retrospect server version is 8.1 (build 626). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ChrisW76 Posted April 11, 2010 Report Share Posted April 11, 2010 At present the bottom-line is, is that if you have a need to do backups of client machines on a local network, then Retrospect 8 is not suitable for this purpose due to the throughput issues. In most cases 150MB/min is about as good as it gets with long delays elsewhere. In our case, doing a full backup of our main file server with 3TB of data takes approximately 2 weeks working continuously and backing nothing else up. Locally though performance is very good as others have experienced. For those wondering, this is Intel Xserve to Intel Xserve on a bonded 2Gb/s ethernet link on a Dell/Cisco switch (each machine has plenty of RAM). In a different world, a product like this might have been tested prior to being sold, but I guess in EMC's world there is nothing like collecting a couple of thousand upfront from your beta testers. :angryred: Cheers, Chris W. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CallMeDave Posted April 11, 2010 Report Share Posted April 11, 2010 EMC's world there is nothing like collecting a couple of thousand upfront from your beta testers That would be the world where an automated system will send you a code for their most expensive license just by entering a valid email address, allowing adequate time for responsible sysadms to perform pre-purchase evaluation and validation testing? Yeah, that world. Dave Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ChrisW76 Posted April 12, 2010 Report Share Posted April 12, 2010 EMC's world there is nothing like collecting a couple of thousand upfront from your beta testers That would be the world where an automated system will send you a code for their most expensive license just by entering a valid email address, allowing adequate time for responsible sysadms to perform pre-purchase evaluation and validation testing? Yeah, that world. Dave Dave, you are right that we were foolishly reassured by EMC technical support when my IT Tech was evaluating the product and should have held off purchasing until the problem was fixed. I am grumbling because it has been almost a year since that reassurance and the problem still exists. What I don't understand is why EMC continue to sell it as a working product when for most users, it just does not work as it should. At the very least, EMC should be extending the M&S agreement for 12 months for all of us 'beta testers'. I notice that the code to collect our money appears to be well tested... Cheers, Chris W. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
samvenning Posted April 12, 2010 Report Share Posted April 12, 2010 I agree completely. We purchased Retrospect 8 August 2009 and don't feel it is ready for network backups. And the Annual Support and Maintenance (ASM) hasn't been much value – bugs not fixed and no communication from EMC when the slow network performance will be fixed. I had thought our Annual Support and Maintenance would be extended... but I'd just be grateful to have the network slow down problem addressed. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mayoff Posted April 12, 2010 Report Share Posted April 12, 2010 (edited) Actually this week our engineers made what we believe is a huge breakthrough on network backup speeds. We are trying to get it into the big release we are working on right now. You will be very happy with the new speeds (more internal testing is still needed to make sure the initial tests are correct). Edited April 12, 2010 by Guest Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bcarillon Posted April 12, 2010 Report Share Posted April 12, 2010 Yea... that would be much appreciated!! Thanks Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ChrisW76 Posted April 14, 2010 Report Share Posted April 14, 2010 Actually this week our engineers made what we believe is a huge breakthrough on network backup speeds. We are trying to get it into the big release we are working on right now. You will be very happy with the new speeds (more internal testing is still needed to make sure the initial tests are correct). That sounds very promising. Hopefully they have managed to figure out what is happening at a network level because the difference between version 6 & 8 is huge: version 6 backs up at 500MB/min versus 170MB/min. Cheers, Chris W. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ChrisW76 Posted April 15, 2010 Report Share Posted April 15, 2010 Just for laughs, I thought I would try backing up one of our smaller Windows machines. Yep 35MB/min. Should back up 40GB of data in only 20 hours. Cheers, Chris W. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Maser Posted April 15, 2010 Report Share Posted April 15, 2010 Yeah, the Windows client (for whatever reason) doesn't really seem to push throughput like the Mac client does (even though both seem limited by that 100Base-T max.) Hopefully, the changes indicated in this thread will change that in the next release. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ChrisW76 Posted April 16, 2010 Report Share Posted April 16, 2010 Yeah, the Windows client (for whatever reason) doesn't really seem to push throughput like the Mac client does (even though both seem limited by that 100Base-T max.) Hopefully, the changes indicated in this thread will change that in the next release. Well that would make sense, but 35MB/min is 597kB/sec or about 0.5Mb/sec. Saturating a 100Base-T network would provide a theoretical throughput of about 20+ times this rate. For comparative purposes, Retrospect 6 to the same machine with the same client has a throughput of about 180MB/min. Cheers, Chris W. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Maser Posted April 16, 2010 Report Share Posted April 16, 2010 "theoretical" is not reality. I believe the reality of a 100Base-T network is more about 11-12M/s. But, yes, when I did some "atMonitor" testing of throughput for clients, it showed me that Mac clients -- while hitting the 12M/s max -- would stay at that max. Windows 7 clients would hit the 12M/s max, but jump down to .7M/s, up to 3M/s, up to 12M/s, down to 8M/s, etc. -- it was not a consistent "pull" from the Windows client. And this was all on Gigabit Ethernet -- which Retro 6 showed pushing 33M/s on the same "engine" computer (an older MBP) -- but for which the Windows client was still "jumpy" in terms of throughput speed. Not sure why the Windows client has such "noisy" throughput -- I never tried to dig deeper. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ChrisW76 Posted April 16, 2010 Report Share Posted April 16, 2010 Further to this, some indicative testing seems to show that Retrospect 7.7 on Windows Server 2003 x64 works at full speed as well. At one point I saw 1200MB/min during testing, though I think it will go below this with the number of smaller files. Assuming restore works, this may be the best option for Mac network administrators until EMC finally nail the bug in Retrospect 8. Cheers, Chris W. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
samvenning Posted April 21, 2010 Report Share Posted April 21, 2010 (edited) 12 April gave us a bit of hope by posting this. Actually this week our engineers made what we believe is a huge breakthrough on network backup speeds. We are trying to get it into the big release we are working on right now. You will be very happy with the new speeds (more internal testing is still needed to make sure the initial tests are correct).Robin Mayoff Senior Manager, Retrospect Tech Support Retro-Talk, KB & Forum Admin A week and a half after posting this no sign of a software update. And no time frame mentioned for a software update. Vaporware? Teasing us? Feeling jilted. Edited April 21, 2010 by Guest Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CallMeDave Posted April 21, 2010 Report Share Posted April 21, 2010 A week and a half after posting this no sign of a software update. And no time frame mentioned for a software updateI'm confused. He provided no time frame, yet you feel jilted after it didn't ship within some arbitrary delay? I'd proffer that the very reason no ship date was given was so customers wouldn't have expectations that might have gone unmet. Don't get me wrong; I'm totally bummed that the specific promise of frequent incremental updates (thanks to use of Apple's modern development tools) has not been kept. But I understand that the Retrospect group is but one of many within a very, very large tech company, and things may have changed over the year and a half since that promise was made. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mayoff Posted April 21, 2010 Report Share Posted April 21, 2010 For those that do not follow us on twitter, the following tweet was sent yesterday: Backup of client computers will be sped up significantly in EMC Retrospect 8.2 for Mac. Lots of fixes, too. Look for a beta next month. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CallMeDave Posted April 21, 2010 Report Share Posted April 21, 2010 I'm already being patient for April 30 (when the iPad WiFi + 3G ships); guess I'll have to practice my deep breathing exercises... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rhwalker Posted April 21, 2010 Report Share Posted April 21, 2010 Even though I am perpetually confused, I am very patient. My hope is that the release is delayed, rather than hurried, so that thorough and adequate testing can be performed by EMC. After all, this is our data that we entrust to Retrospect. To paraphrase an old auto industry slogan, for backup software, Reliability is job one. Russ Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mayoff Posted April 21, 2010 Report Share Posted April 21, 2010 This is why we decided this release should have a public beta. I don't know if Beta 1 will contain the older backup set compatibility or not, but at least by a Beta 2 we will have it (crossing my fingers). We really want user feedback. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CallMeDave Posted April 21, 2010 Report Share Posted April 21, 2010 We really want user feedback. First thing [color:purple]I'm[/color] gonna test is what happens when an expected network share goes offline. That fact that what happens to a fileserver on the 5th floor can currently render unusable a backup server stored on the 4th floor is pretty much unacceptable. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mayoff Posted April 21, 2010 Report Share Posted April 21, 2010 We will provide the typical list of bug fixes at the time of the beta. The list is huge. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ChrisW76 Posted April 22, 2010 Report Share Posted April 22, 2010 We really want user feedback. Don't worry - you'll get it! :teeth: Any chance this will be out in the next 30-days? (I have just converted everything over to Retrospect 7.7 on a temporary Windows Server - works very well). I was half thinking about changing to it permanently, but would prefer to stick to a Mac for this. Cheers, Chris W. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mayoff Posted April 22, 2010 Report Share Posted April 22, 2010 Look for a beta next month. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ChrisW76 Posted May 19, 2010 Report Share Posted May 19, 2010 How is the beta coming along? Will it be out this week? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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