Saving backups to OneDrive for Business (Retrospect 7.7)

[FrugalOptimist]

I've looked around and there's a mix of people saying they've configured Retrospect to save to OneDrive, and those who say they've tried and given up.  There's also some blurb on the internet (especially around Retrospect 8 and 9) from the company themselves that sort of hints at necessary tweaks in the WebClient section of Windows registry to help make it work.

 

But no joy for me (with my limited experience, and waning patience in my old age .. ha!) to spend hours and hours experimenting.

 

Is it possible?

 

I'm encouraged that OneDrive / SharePoint thing gets mentioned in the available destinations but then I get error -1116, which isnt really explained anywhere.

 

I downloaded the trial version of 11.5, which expressly talks about cloud backups, but that's only of use for Amazon and Dropbox, neither of which I want to pay for seeing as I'm already paying for OneDrive with my Office365 subscription.

 

Any ideas, anyone?

 

 

[DavidHertzberg]

Retrospect Macintosh 9 added the capability to access cloud providers whose facilities are compatible with the WebDAV protocol.  That capability was passed along to Retrospect Windows 8, which basically implemented Retrospect Macintosh 10 with a different UI per this old version of the Wikipedia article.  However the only mention of webDAV in the Retrospect Windows 11 User's Guide is a release note for Retrospect Windows 8.  That refers to a UG page number that was incorrect even for the Retrospect Windows 8 UG, but says "Use http or https when entering the UNC path"; the correct location for the section it refers to by name is pg. 446 in the Retrospect Windows 11 UG.

 

I did a Google search for "WebDAV OneDrive"; the newest article it shows is this 2015 one by the famous Paul Thurrott.  However, if you read the comments on the article, his method doesn't seem to work for Windows 10.  What version of Windows are you running?

 

P.S.: Added requirement for UNC path in last sentence of first paragraph.

Edited October 19, 2017 by DavidHertzberg
Wikipedia article has been significantly re-edited, but old version was saved

[FrugalOptimist]

Windows 10.

 

But also, the method shown in that article, as regards finding your 'CID' number only applies to OneDrive (personal) as opposed to OneDrive For Business.  You can, after most clumsy procedure of needing to map the network drive from within an MS Office application's file open dialog, achieve the same effect to get yourself a Y or Z or whatever random drive letter to the OneDrive cloud 'disk' but then sadly Retrospect 7.7 fails to see that drive letter, it not being a local drive.  Confess I didn't actually test this in 11.5 as I thought to myself, hang on, this looks a bit rubbish having to repurchase licences for that otherwise identical in broad terms software to what I've already got and 11.5 didn't impress in having inbuilt cloud support only for two or three such services, OneDrive not being one of them

[Mayoff]

Retrospect 7.7 does not support Windows 10. Using that older version with Windows 10 will result in dataloss when trying to get a complete backup of a Windows 10 operating system. Please contact support about upgrade options.

[DavidHertzberg]

Aside from what Mayoff has said, one problem is that AFAIK Retrospect Windows did not support any kind of cloud backup until Retrospect Windows 8.  At that point, because it picked up the underlying facilities of Retrospect Mac 10, Retrospect Windows 8 and beyond support the WebDAV protocol—which is the standard  protocol for mapping cloud drives to a local computer.  The fact that any mention of WebDAV, other than in a release note, is absent from the subsequent Retrospect Windows User's Guides is the fault of a Retrospect Inc. group that Mayoff has previously said he is not part of.

 

Another problem is that Microsoft OneDrive does not officially support the WebDAV protocol.  You can take up that question with Satya Nadella.  There may be hacks for getting Retrospect 8 and later to support OneDrive, but I don't believe they will work with Retrospect 7.7.  Thus, as Mayoff said, your first step would be to upgrade your version of Retrospect.  The Retrospect Inc. engineers have made substantial improvements to "that otherwise identical in broad terms software" since 2011.

 

As far as "inbuilt cloud support only for two or three such services", there are four cloud services (Amazon, Google Cloud, DreamHost, and Dropbox) in North America alone that support the Amazon AWS protocol that Retrospect Windows 11.5 supports.  There are also cheaper cloud services that support the WebDAV protocol; the one that I am aware of is Box.com.  I have expressed myself in the third sentence of the third paragraph of this post about what you want,  but (trigger warning) that post is not fit for your frugal optimistic (insert appropriate smiley here) ears.

[FrugalOptimist]

I'll have a look around for alternative solutions but I do like Retrospect.

 

Its a marvel - a rare one in the field of software - to which I'd add for example Scooter Software's Beyond Compare v.2.5.2, that is just very effective, very reliable, very well designed, very very simple and no-frills, great utilities, that are a joy to use for what they say it will do.  I guess my cloud request is pushing that boundary unreasonably.

 

Still seems serious shortcoming not to support OneDrive though in the current version ... maybe those dreaded inter-company technology battles like eg. MS disabling Apple's Firewire interface in (as I recall) XP SP3 are at play ....

 

The (trial) version of Retrospect 11.5 might have under the bonnet/hood improvements but user-interface-wise it seemed the same to me ... so if 7.7 isn't broken, why pay again for the "same" thing, is my attitude.  If it doesn't restore Windows 10 properly, no matter- I'll just reinstall the OS first.

[DavidHertzberg]

The kindest way I can put this is "Don't judge a book by its cover."  You should start by reading this section in the old version of the Wikipedia article, and then reading forward at least through the end of the "Retrospect Macintosh 10 and Retrospect Windows 8" section.  What you'll learn is that Retrospect Windows 8 and following are totally different "under the hood" than Retrospect Windows 7.7.  The reason the Retrospect Windows User Interface looks the same is that the Retrospect engineers went to a great deal of trouble to make it look the same, for reasons alluded to in the last paragraph of the "Retrospect Macintosh 8" section.  I do not dare to be more specific on these forums for fear of upsetting Mayoff, but you can get a better idea of the 2009-2010 situation by following the first reference in the last sentence of that last paragraph in the section and reading the second post in the linked-to TheRegister.co.uk comment thread.  The writer of that post does not have atypical views; when in June 2015 I mentioned that I was going to install Retrospect 12, I got over a page of strongly negative views from experienced Ars Technica posters who had been burned by Retrospect Macintosh 8.  However I persevered; Retrospect Macintosh 12 has been good for me.

 

To my knowledge there have been at least 3 recent complaints that Retrospect Windows 11.5 does not support some non-Amazon-S3-protocol-compliant cloud storage provider.  In addition to the fact that the Retrospect engineers (unlike me; I'm a forum volunteer) have a budget and priorities, you fail to consider the possibility that some of these providers would not be suitable for cloud backup use.  Please remember that many of these providers (Microsoft and Google, for example) provide cloud storage for use by "minnows" in conjunction with an office suite; what is sufficient capacity and speed for storing office documents may not be enough for doing Retrospect backups.  As an example, a friend set up a free Dropbox account for me around two years ago; I stopped using it for inter-machine transfers after a not-very-large file took 2 hours to show up on the destination machine—whereas a sneakernet transfer of a similar file via USB "key fob" took less than 5 minutes including manual copying.

 

So now it's time to ask a few questions, so we can delve into the wonders of 8th-grade arithmetic.  What is your raw or effective upload speed (you can supply it in raw bits/sec., or you can pre-convert it to effective bytes/min. by applying the factors 60 secs./min. and 10 bits/byte—which allows for TCP/IP overhead)?  How many bytes will you be backing up in a Normal Backup run, and how many minutes—using the effective bytes/min. calculated per the first question—will that take?  Considering that none of these non-Amazon-S3-protocol-compliant cloud storage providers offers "seeding", how many bytes do you need stored in the cloud before you start doing your Normal Backup runs, and how long will it take—using the effective bytes/min. calculated per the first question—to store them?  Finally, having calculated your effective download speed the same way you calculated your effective upload speed for the first question, how long will it take you to download a typical and near-bare-metal restore?

 

I suspect you'll discover that your most-cost-effective approach is to continue (I hope you are already doing this) doing an off-site backup by periodically carrying a (preferably rotated) $80 USB 3 hard drive to your bank safe deposit box or to somebody's home.  It takes a bit of discipline to do this, but you (I hope) have learned to brush and floss your teeth daily (insert appropriate smiley here).

 

If you must have a practical test, you could download a trial version of Retrospect Windows 11.5, and also a trial version of ExpanDrive (I think you can get a free trial version).  YMMV, since I have not used either program.

Edited October 19, 2017 by DavidHertzberg
Wikipedia article has been significantly re-edited, but old version was saved

[Mayoff]

> What you'll learn is that Retrospect Windows 8 and following are totally different "under the hood" than Retrospect Windows 7.7.

 

This is not true. Retrospect 8 for Macintosh is totally different from version 6.x and earlier for Macintosh. Retrospect 7.7 for windows and version 8 for windows share probably 99% of the same code.

[FrugalOptimist]

OK, bored now.  Retrospect 7.7 lives!

[DavidHertzberg]

> What you'll learn is that Retrospect Windows 8 and following are totally different "under the hood" than Retrospect Windows 7.7.

 

This is not true. Retrospect 8 for Macintosh is totally different from version 6.x and earlier for Macintosh. Retrospect 7.7 for windows and version 8 for windows share probably 99% of the same code.

 

 

DovidBenAvraham, who did the major update of the Wikipedia article on Retrospect, stands corrected.  Unfortunately the earliest version of the Retrospect Windows User's Guide that is available on the Retrospect.com website is for version 7.5.  It does not have a "What's New" chapter, let alone a "What's New" chapter that covers Retrospect Windows 7.0, so DBA would have had to search through 389 pages of text (which BTW includes a duplicate of page 48 at the very end) to see which features that are listed as "new" in the press release for Retrospect Macintosh 8 are actually also in Retrospect Windows 7—even though they're not in the newly-found (see P.S. below) Retrospect Windows 7 press release.  However, considering that Retrospect Windows 8.0 includes "Instant Scan technology" and "Improved disaster recovery process" and "Support for [WebDAV] cloud storage" along with other new features and "User-initiated backups" (inherited from Retrospect Mac 9 and obviously requiring some new "backup server" code), it seems that the "backup server" code is more than 1% new "under the hood".

 

Of course DBA will try to update the Wikipedia article per what Mayoff says; to do otherwise would violate his principles as a WP editor.  He now surmises that there must have been a Retrospect Macintosh 7, un-released and maybe not completely coded, that implemented many of the features that are listed as "new" in the Retrospect Macintosh 8 press release.  These features obviously didn't include "powerful new engine" and "all-new, customizable [administrator] interface", but they probably included those features that are  apparently new in Retrospect Windows 7.  Did those features include the modern Disk type of Backup Set (as distinct from the old Disk type of Backup Set—which has been renamed Removable Disk in Retrospect Windows; see this post for what happens when you try to define a modern RDX disk as a Removable Disk) whose features are not mentioned in the Retrospect Windows 7.5 UG?  Did they include "Complete backup of server clients", which seems not to have been not so complete in the Retrospect Windows 7.5 UG?  Please provide answers to these questions, Mayoff, if you want DBA to attempt updating the WP article.

 

Even armed with the answers to those questions, DBA will still have two problems updating the WP article.  The first problem is that he must provide checkable references for the revised facts, and a forum post from Mayoff may not qualify as checkable.  (To understand what a problem this can be, look at item (3) in this section of the Talk page accompanying DBA's WP article on his dead friend Ronny Lee; Lee had never mentioned that he was drafted too late to be sent overseas by the end of WWII to any of the magazine editors who wrote "About the Author" boxes accompanying Lee's articles—even though Lee had mentioned it to his friends, so DBA couldn't state that as a fact in the article.)  The second problem is that another Wikipedia editor has already tagged the Retrospect article as "This article relies too much on references to primary sources."  Primary sources, in the case of an article on software, means references to documents provided by the software manufacturer.  DBA has already, with difficulty, made 50% of the references be from secondary sources—meaning reviews.  However the only review of Retrospect Windows 7 that DBA has been able to find is this short one, which complains about the lack of change to the User Interface instead of describing many of the new features.

 

P.S.: Never mind, Mayoff; DovidBenAvraham found a Retrospect Windows 7 press release among the bunch that Dell/EMC now has posted—we don't think it was there previously.  Since the WP article's only reference to the Retrospect Macintosh 8 UG is to show that it wasn't copyrighted until 2011, maybe DBA can figure a way around that ref. and substitute the Dell/EMC press release (with its feature list) for it—thus keeping the number of primary-source references the same.

 

P.P.S.: Revised 4th sentence in second paragraph; DovidBenAvraham has now made it clear in the WP article that the Disk type of Backup Set introduced in Retrospect Mac 8 and Retrospect Windows 10 is not the same as the Disk type of Backup Set that was in Retrospect Windows 7 and Retrospect Mac 6—it has new features.

 

P.P.P.S.: DovidBenAvraham has now found a YouTube video, uploaded 28 April 2010, that shows—at minute 1:50 and afterwards—a Backup Media dialog that gives both Disk and Removable Disk as choices.  This implies that, by the end of its long life, Retrospect Windows 7 had been retrofitted with the same modern Disk type of Backup Set that was introduced in Retrospect Mac 8.  However this retrofitting was too late to be mentioned in the otherwise-so-useful Retrospect Windows 7 press release, and DBA does not consider it worth adding to the WP article another controversial primary source—the 2010 video was audibly narrated by Mayoff—just to make a historical point that was not mentioned in the 2011 Retrospect Windows 7.7 UG Addendum.

 

P.P.P.P.S.:  In last sentence of first paragraph. added "User-initiated backups"; "User-initiated restores" were in Retrospect Windows 7 as an Add-On, but not "User-initiated backups".

 

P.P.P.P.P.S: Further enhanced parenthesized part of 4th sentence in second paragraph, to link to ProFromGrover's example of problems with use of Removable Disk instead of Disk to define a modern RDX disk cartridge.

 

P.P.P.P.P.P.S: Added "under the hood" at the end of last sentence in first paragraph, thus clarifying the difference between the code I'm talking about and the code Mayoff is talking about (for British-English-trained readers, the "hood" in American car terminology is the "bonnet" in British car terminology).

[Mayoff]

I want to apologize to the user who created this thread. It clearly has gone off topic. Please email support if you want to work directly with support to address your product concerns.

 

David, please keep your forum posts to the topic and questions related to product troubleshooting. I am sure your fellow forum users are really not interested in the nuances of a wikipedia article that really doesn't address the original question.

[DavidHertzberg]

> What you'll learn is that Retrospect Windows 8 and following are totally different "under the hood" than Retrospect Windows 7.7.

 

This is not true. Retrospect 8 for Macintosh is totally different from version 6.x and earlier for Macintosh. Retrospect 7.7 for windows and version 8 for windows share probably 99% of the same code.

 

I don't think  that the nuances of by what percentage the code changed from Retrospect Windows 7.7 to Retrospect Windows 8 "address the original question".  My first point in the thread, which does "address the original question", was that Retrospect Windows 7.7 does not support any kind of cloud service but that Retrospect Windows 8 does support WebDAV-compatible cloud services.  My second point, which also does "address the original question", was that the Microsoft OneDrive service is not compatible with WebDAV.  My third point, which again does "address the original question", was that—even if the Microsoft OneDrive service were compatible with WebDAV—it might not be suitable for Retrospect backups, which is a plausible reason why—despite FrugalOptimist's complaints—Retrospect Inc. does not support it.

 

I want to apologize to the user who created this thread. It clearly has gone off topic. Please email support if you want to work directly with support to address your product concerns.

 

David, please keep your forum posts to the topic and questions related to product troubleshooting. I am sure your fellow forum users are really not interested in the nuances of a wikipedia article that really doesn't address the original question.

 

 

Only the second and third paragraphs of my post #10 in this thread address the "nuances of a Wikipedia article that really doesn't address" the question that Mayoff himself raised in his post #8 in this thread.  I would have been happy, on DovidBenAvraham's behalf, to direct those paragraphs directly to Mayoff without bothering my "fellow forum users".  However I don't know of a way to do that.  Mayoff's former direct e-mail address no longer works, and he says "I do not accept private messages in the forum."  So I did impose on my "fellow forum users" for two paragraphs, but got no help from Mayoff—only a snarky "apology" that probably did not reach FrugalOptimist (who had already posted "OK, bored now.  Retrospect 7.7 lives!").  Should I instead have turned those two paragraphs into a Support Case?  Is there a "past history of Retrospect and its publicity consequences" Support Case category into which they would have fit?

 

Mayoff has said my "fellow forum users are really not interested in the nuances of a wikipedia article that really doesn't address the original question".  But the article does now "address the original question" to the extent that Mayoff's post #8 comment addresses it, because DovidBenAvraham yesterday incorporated the "What's New" revelations of the Retrospect Windows 7 press release (which seems to have recently reappeared on the Web because Dell has insisted on the re-posting of the press releases from EMC's old subsidiaries).  And my "fellow forum users" in fact do seem to be interested.  The Pageviews Analysis (click "View history" at the top of the article, then click "Page view statistics" at the right just above the second gray horizontal bar from the top) for the article jumped from 32 to 41 yesterday—which brings the daily page views from approximately double what they averaged before DBA began expanding the article on October 5th to nearly triple what they averaged.  Either people who are not my "fellow forum users" are through their psychic abilities feeling the urge to take a look whenever DBA does further edits—which should make Mayoff as a Retrospect Inc. employee very happy, or my "fellow forum users" are keeping a watch for changes in the article—which means they really are interested.

 

Maybe Mayoff should, instead of apologizing to FrugalOptimist, arrange to give him/her a cut-rate price on an upgrade to Retrospect Windows 8?  Or the oldest version of Retrospect Windows that is compatible with Windows 10—which I see now from the Release Notes would be Retrospect Windows 10.5?

 

P.S.: In last sentence of last paragraph, added earliest version of Retrospect Windows that would be compatible with Windows 10.

[DavidHertzberg]

I have now discovered that Mayoff was factually correct in post #8, but there's no way I could have known that.  The apology and explanation are here, because it's a Wikipedia question.