What CDR devices definitely WILL work?

[jlw]

I am having tremendous difficulty identifying a CDR device we can buy that definitely will work with Retrospect 5.0 Server Edition under MacOS X Server 10.1.4.

 

 

 

I've got the software installed on our MacOS X Server and am successful in running nightly backups to an external Firewire hard drive (we bought four of these drives and rotate them once per week.)

 

 

 

However, we've also got a huge CD archive of completed jobs accumulated under our previous system (a MacOS 9 computer with external SCSI CD burner, both of which are gone now.) We can't retrieve any files from this archive or add any new ones, because Retrospect does not recognize either the server's internal CD (this is an older gray G4 with read-only CD drive) or the LaCie external Firewire CD-RW drive I've been trying to use.

 

 

 

Apparently (as I discovered by wading through EVERY post in this forum -- the 'search engine' didn't help) this particular drive model is not supported. But there was no way for me to find that out before buying. The compatibility list is based on drive MECHANISMS (something that isn't always possible to find out from vendor literature) and doesn't seem to be very up-to-date. LaCie drives are the easiest for us to get from our supplier -- but as best I could determine, NONE of the LaCie drives in the supported-devices list are current models that I would actually be able to buy. All I could do was make sure the candidate drives were not on the list of UNsupported devices for MacOS X -- which didn't help, as the drive I bought was NOT on the list but evidently is unsupported anyway.

 

 

 

It's all very well to say, "the validation process can take six months to a year, so keep checking back" -- but the fact is that my server is filling up NOW with jobs that need to be archived, and my users are complaining NOW about the fact that they can't retrieve their previous work.

 

 

 

I need to know the identity of a USB or Firewire CDRW drive that I can buy NOW that I can be sure *definitely will work.* I'm going to have enough trouble explaining to the purchasing department why the drive I just ordered is a write-off, and I can't afford to make the same mistake twice!

[vlherring]

You might check a Yamaha - there are 4 of them that show up as listed compatible if you do a search in the database (searching Mac OS, FW, CDRW) -= most of the others are not out there on shelves still but I was able to find a Yamaha (the 2100FX thing) and there are others at J & R evidently.

[giametti]

As far as I can tell there is no way to know for sure. My Yamaha SCSI drive (6416S) is _supposed_ to work according to the knowledgebase, but it doesn't. and since Danctz does not offer tech support, I have no way to find out why. I find Dantz's excuses unconvincing. Why will a CDR work with every other program under OS9 or X, but not with Retrospect? It's either the hardware or the software. The hardware works, so the software is the likely suspect. Everyone else's software works with OSX, so it mut be Retrospect that is messed up.

[lv2ski]

Let me see if I can figure out.....

 

The problem is you backed up to this Yamaha drive with OS 9 (4.3 or something). You moved this drive and the backup media to an OSX machine, running Retro 5.0. Now you can't read any of that media.... is this right?

 

 

 

Let me know so that we can proceed in helping you.

[davidduff]

i have the yamaha 6416s scsi drive you mention and it works fine for me (although it is very slow). you may have a problem with your scsi card not being supported properly by either retrospect or by macosx in general. or you may have a bad drive.

 

 

 

i have an adaptec 2930 scsi card, i believe. it's been a while - not sure i remember correctly, but i may have installed a firmware patch for the card at some point to make it work under os x.