Retrospect 8 Read Me

[Mayoff]

EMC Retrospect 8.0 Read Me

Updated March 18, 2009

 

This document contains important information about EMC Retrospect 8.0 for Macintosh. Please read it carefully.

 

The EMC Retrospect web site is regularly updated with the most recent support information for Retrospect and related products, including the following:

EMC Retrospect Support

Retrospect Updates

 

 

Contents

New features in EMC Retrospect 8.0

EMC Retrospect 8.0 system requirements

Tips and late-breaking information

Known issues with this release

Upgrading from EMC Retrospect 6.1

Upgrading from the EMC Retrospect 8.0 Beta

Uninstalling EMC Retrospect 8.0

 

 

New Features in EMC Retrospect 8.0

An all-new Mac OS X user interface employs standard Mac OS X interface elements, such as toolbars, scope buttons, search fields, etc.

 

Support for multiple processors/cores and improved throughput to storage devices results in improved performance across the board.

 

The Retrospect console and Retrospect engine are separate components, allowing management and control of multiple Retrospect servers from a single interface.

 

Retrospect Single Server and Multi Server can run multiple, simultaneous activities so that a restore can now be performed without interrupting active backups.

 

Disk Media Sets allow grouping of multiple direct- and network-attached disk resources into a single backup destination, with complete support for spanning backups across multiple disks. Disk Media Sets replace Removable Disk Backup Sets.

Periodic grooming of Disk Media Sets recovers space on the backup media by removing outdated files. Users can choose how many past backups to save.

 

New copy operations support staged backups, both disk-to-disk-to-disk (D2D2D) and disk-to-disk-to-tape (D2D2T), with Retrospect’s Smart Incremental and file-level deduplication technologies.

 

Custom reporting, filtering, and sorting are available in all views (Activities, Sources, Past Backups, Media Sets, etc.); a Dashboard provides at-a-glance status of the Retrospect server.

 

Wake-on-LAN support for Mac clients gives Retrospect the ability to wake Mac OS X clients from sleep immediately prior to a backup, resulting in improved energy efficiency and reducing costs.

 

Improved Windows client backup and restore protects system state, registry, and open files on Windows 2000/XP/Vista, Windows 2000 Server, and Windows Server 2003/2008. (Backup of open files, such as Outlook PST files and active databases with Retrospect Single Server and Multi Server requires the Windows Open File Backup add-on.)

 

Retrospect 8.0 supports more storage devices than previous Mac versions and now includes faster media slot scanning and automated cleaning tape support for tape libraries.

 

Built-in email notification, improved scheduling, and support for multiple network interfaces are some of the many additional new and improved features in Retrospect 8.0.

 

Retrospect 8.0 also introduces several important terminology changes:

 

Old Version 6.1 Terminology Version 8.0 Terminology

Backup Sets Media Sets

Subvolumes Favorite Folders

Selectors Rules

Duplicate Copy

Backup Server Script Proactive Backup Script

Source Groups Tags

 

Media Sets are backup destinations made up of one or more pieces of media (disk, optical, etc.).

 

Favorite Folders are user-defined folders that serve as backup sources and restore destinations.

 

Rules are used to filter files/folders/volumes for backup, copy, and restore operations. An example would be a rule that ignores files inside any folder named “Cache”. Rules can be created and modified in the Preferences window (Retrospect menu > Preferences...). The interface for creating rules is far improved over Retrospect 6.1.

 

Copy operations move files/folders from one location to another, retaining their format and folder structure. A copy script would be used to make a bootable clone of a Mac OS X startup disk.

 

Proactive Backup (formerly Backup Server) is Retrospect’s dynamically self-adjusting backup management system that automatically re-prioritizes sources based on their need for a backup and Media Set usage based on availability. Proactive Backup scripts are typically used to back up laptops that come and go from the network or to manage desktop/laptop backups where there are too many sources to protect within timeframe available.

 

Tags allow sources to be grouped by user-defined classifications, such as “Critical Systems,” “Accounting,” “3rd Floor,” and “Laptops.”

 

 

EMC Retrospect 8.0 system requirements

 

Macintosh computers that run Retrospect

 

Retrospect 8.0 console (manages the engine)

Intel processor

Mac OS X 10.5.5 or later

At least 1 GB RAM

50 MB hard disk space

The Retrospect console need not be installed on the same Mac as the Retrospect engine.

 

Retrospect 8.0 engine (performs backups and restores)

Intel processor

Mac OS X 10.4.11 or 10.5.5 or later

At least 2 GB RAM

10-15 GB of hard disk space for each concurrent activity

Storage for backups

Note: For the initial release of Retrospect 8, the Retrospect console and engine do not run on PowerPC machines; this ability will be added in a future update.

 

Mac OS X Clients

PowerPC G3, G4, or G5, or any Intel processor

Mac OS X or Mac OS X Server 10.3.9, 10.4.11, or 10.5.5 or later

RAM that meets Apple's guidelines for each OS

Note: Backing up Mac OS X Server clients requires Retrospect Multi Server or Retrospect Single Server with available Server Client Licenses.

 

Windows Clients

Pentium processor or later

Windows 2000, XP, or Vista; Windows 2000 Server, Windows Server 2003 or 2008

RAM that meets Microsoft's guidelines for each OS

Note: Backing up Windows Server clients requires Retrospect Multi Server or Retrospect Single Server with available Server Client Licenses.

 

Linux Clients

x86-based system running Red Hat Linux, Red Hat Enterprise Linux, SUSE Linux Desktop, SUSE Linux Professional, SUSE Linux Standard Server, or SUSE Enterprise Server operating system.

glibc version 2 or later

Note: In order to use the graphical user interface (GUI) to change options and preferences, Java version 1.2 or later is also required.

 

Storage Devices

Retrospect supports a wide variety of storage devices as the destination for backups, including hard drives (both direct- and network-attached), tape drives and libraries (connected via FireWire, SCSI, iSCSI, Fibre Channel), and removable disk drives. See the Retrospect Device Support Database for a complete list of supported tape drives and libraries. Backing up to optical media such as CD, DVD, and Blu-ray in the initial release requires manually activating this feature; please see below for details.

 

 

Tips and late-breaking information

 

Using Public/Private Key authentication with Retrospect Clients

Public/Private Key is a method by which Retrospect Clients running Mac OS X 10.4 or 10.5 can be logged into a Retrospect server automatically through use of matching encryption key sets. To use this new feature in Retrospect 8.0, follow the steps below.

1. Launch the Retrospect application and go to Preferences > Clients.

2. Click "Create keys...", enter a password of eight characters or more for key creation, then click Create. Retrospect may take up to a minute or more to generate the keys, depending on the speed of the computer.

3. If you want Retrospect to automatically log in clients with the proper public key, check "Automatically add clients".

4. In the Finder, locate the pubkey.dat file in /Library/Application Support/Retrospect/ and copy it into the folder named "public_key" provided with the Mac Client Installer.

5. Distribute or copy this public_key folder containing the pubkey.dat file along with the Retrospect Client 6.3 installer. As long as the public_key folder is located at the same level with the Client installer when the installer is run, the proper encryption keys (pubkey.dat, pubkey1.dat, pubkey2.dat,...,pubkey9.dat) will be installed on each client.

6. After installing the Retrospect Client software on each computer, they can be logged in (or will be automatically logged in, if that option was set) at the Retrospect server.

 

Activating optical device support in Retrospect 8.0

Optical device support is deactivated by default in Retrospect 8.0, because Retrospect 8.0 will lock out all other applications from being able to use the optical drive. To use an optical drive with Retrospect 8.0, you will need to open the following file with a text editor (such as TextEdit):

 

/Library/Application Support/Retrospect/RetrospectEngine.bundle/Contents/MacOS/retro.ini

 

Change the DisableOpticalDrivers setting from 1 to 0. Save the retro.ini file and use the Retrospect System Preferences pane to stop and restart the Retrospect engine. Note that Retrospect may not be able to see an optical drive that has been captured for use by VMware Fusion or Parallels.

 

 

Known issues with this release

For the most up-to-date information on known issues with Retrospect 8.0, please read the Retrospect Knowledgebase article on known issues. The following is a partial list of features or functionality that is not present in the first release of EMC Retrospect 8.0.

 

Retrospect 8.0 does not run on PowerPC-based Macs (though they can still be backed up as clients). PowerPC support is considered a key feature and is expected to be available in April, 2009 as part of a free update to version 8.0.

 

Complete documentation is not yet available. Retrospect 8.0 includes a What’s New and Getting Started Guide that covers many features, and the Retrospect website features a number of training videos. The completed Retrospect User’s Guide will be available for download soon.

 

Retrospect 8.0 cannot import configurations or read Backup Sets from previous Mac versions. Clients will need to be added, and scripts will need to be scheduled anew with version 8.0. However, Retrospect 8.0 does not overwrite/remove previous Retrospect editions during the installation process, so users who need to count on restores from legacy Backup Sets can simply maintain their previous installation of Retrospect. Users who choose to do so should ensure that the previous version’s schedules are disabled, so that two versions of Retrospect are not trying to back up the same computers or control the same device simultaneously.

 

Copy Backup scripts set to “Transfer selected backups” only transfer the first backup in the list. A fix is being investigated.

 

Sources cannot be reordered in standard backup scripts. Sources are backed up in the order that they were added to the script. Proactive Backup scripts will automatically adjust the order of computers being backed, assigning those least recently backed up the highest priority. This functionality is planned for a future release.

 

FTP backups are not yet supported in Retrospect 8.0. This functionality is planned for a future release.

 

Wake-on-LAN does not yet support Windows clients. This functionality is planned for a future release.

 

A bug in Retrospect 8.0 causes backup of Windows Server 2008 Active Directory to fail. A fix is in the works.

 

Clients running Mac OS X 10.2.8 or Mac OS 9 are not backed up with this release. Support for these operating systems is being investigated.

 

 

Upgrading from EMC Retrospect 6.1

Because Retrospect 8.0 does not read Backup Sets created with previous Mac versions, the installation process does not overwrite or remove existing Retrospect 6.1 (or earlier) installations. It is recommended that you continue to maintain your existing Retrospect installation to perform restores from legacy Backup Sets.

 

To keep your existing Retrospect 6.1 (or earlier) installation and prevent that version’s scripts from automatically running, take the following steps:

1. For each backup, duplicate, and restore script with a schedule, edit the script’s schedule and check the box to “Skip scheduled executions.” Enter a date that is several years in the future.

2. For each Backup Server script, edit its schedule and set the schedule to never active.

 

Should you instead wish to remove your previous installation of Retrospect, locate the disk image containing the installer for your current Retrospect installation (or download it from the EMC Retrospect website) and follow these steps:

1. Double-click the Install Retrospect icon and provide your password and agreement to the license.

2. Choose Uninstall from the Easy Install pop-up menu.

3. Click the Uninstall button and follow the on-screen instructions.

 

 

Upgrading from the EMC Retrospect 8.0 Beta

Perform the following steps to upgrade from any Retrospect 8.0 Beta to the release version:

1. Delete the following beta Config files and the Retrospect console preferences.

/Library/Application Support/Retrospect/Config80.bak

/Library/Application Support/Retrospect/Config80.dat

~/Library/Preferences/com.emc.Retrospect.plist

2. Drag the Retrospect Beta application to the trash.

3. Install the Retrospect 8.0 console and engine normally.

4. Create new Media Sets for use with Retrospect 8.0.

 

 

Uninstalling EMC Retrospect 8.0

To remove EMC Retrospect 8.0, follow the steps outlined below.

1. The Uninstaller preserves Config files (which contain the database of logged-in clients, scripts and schedules, and general Retrospect engine preferences), the Retrospect console’s preferences, and all Media Set Catalog files (which keep track of what files are backed up to each Media Set). If you instead want to completely remove all of these settings and Catalogs, delete the following files and folders:

/Library/Application Support/Retrospect/Catalogs/

/Library/Application Support/Retrospect/Config80.bak

/Library/Application Support/Retrospect/Config80.dat

~/Library/Preferences/com.emc.Retrospect.plist

2. Open the EMC Retrospect 8 application folder and double-click the Uninstall Retrospect 8 icon to run the uninstaller.

 

 

©2009 EMC Corporation. All rights reserved.

Edited April 9, 2009 by Guest

[cbum]

Hi Robin,

 

congrats on the release.

 

I'm still waiting to find out if blu-ray devices are finally supported for the mac.

 

thanks.

[Mayoff]

This version does include support for Blu-Ray devices, but it may not support your drive specifically. If it is supported on 7.6 for Windows, then I believe the driver is included in 8.0

Edited March 23, 2009 by Guest

[cbum]

Thanks, that's great news.

 

My bluray drive has been listed as supported by windows for years now - perhaps the info in device support could be updated to reflect mac compatibility!

[rhwalker]

Robin,

 

I'm fully aware of the state of the Retrospect 8.0 initial release, and the platform and OS requirements for the engine and the console. Having done software and hardware development in my youth, I understand well the product release process and the decisions involved, and it's not my purpose to debate the decisions that were made by EMC.

 

I'm also aware that Retrospect 8.0 initial release doesn't support reading older Retrospect backups (2.x, 4.x, 5.x, or 6.x). Despite the statement to the contrary in the Retrospect 6.1 release notes ("Read Me") that older backup sets can be read but not written, it appears that Retrospect 6.1.230 cannot read Retrospect backup sets prior to 6.0, which leaves those older backups in an orphan state right now, which seems a difficult position for a backup program to take. Eric Ullman seemed to imply that backwards compatibility would be provided in a future update of Retrospect 8.x, but your post earlier today in another thread regarding future "6.1 support" by Retrospect 8.x now calls this into question. See:

Ullman post re backward compatibility of Retrospect 8

Mayoff post re future plans to add 6.1 support

 

There is also some uncertainty, because it has not been addressed in the Retrospect 8 release notes, which Retrospect client should be used if the "dual install" of Retrospect 6.1.230 and Retrospect 8.0 are to be used as mentioned in the Retrospect 8.0 release notes.

 

Unrelated to Retrospect but interacting with EMC's decision to have the Console, because of its UI API, require 10.5.x, there are presently AFP, OD, and other issues that preclude some environments from migrating to 10.5.x at this time until some 10.5.x bugs are fixed by Apple. This seems to require those sites to dedicate a 10.5.x machine solely to run Retrospect console.

 

Could we please get a statement from EMC regarding:

 

(1) Will there ever be an update to Retrospect 8.x to provide the ability to read older Retrospect backups (2.x, 4.x, 5.x, and 6.x)?

 

(2) Will the Console ever be supported on 10.4.x? If not, will another interface (perhaps HTML, etc.) be provided?

 

(3) Which Retrospect client should be used if the dual "Retrospect 6.1 / 8.0" installation is chosen?

 

Just trying to make plans.

 

Russ

[Mayoff]

(1) Will there ever be an update to Retrospect 8.x to provide the ability to read older Retrospect backups (2.x, 4.x, 5.x, and 6.x)?

 

Our plan is to update 8.0 to support 6.x sets but we do not plan to test with backup data from backup sets before 6.x.

 

(2) Will the Console ever be supported on 10.4.x? If not, will another interface (perhaps HTML, etc.) be provided?

 

Maybe Eric will comment on this, but I don't think the Console will ever support pre-10.5 because we do require too many APIs only found in 10.5

 

(3) Which Retrospect client should be used if the dual "Retrospect 6.1 / 8.0" installation is chosen?

 

If you want all the features (like wake on LAN) then you must use the new client. I am trying 6.1 application with the 6.3 client and it appears to be working for me but I did need to add the client by IP address. That could be an EMC network issue though.

 

 

[EricU]

(2) Will the Console ever be supported on 10.4.x? If not, will another interface (perhaps HTML, etc.) be provided?

Maybe Eric will comment on this, but I don't think the Console will ever support pre-10.5 because we do require too many APIs only found in 10.5

Robin is correct: We chose to use interface elements that require 10.5 and higher. An HTML UI is something we're quite interested in, indeed.

 

Best,

e

[rhwalker]

Ok, thanks. That makes our decision.

 

It's been a wild ride since 1992, but we will just move on to another solution with a vendor who is committed to restoring backups made with its earlier versions. It's critically important to us that we have that commitment.

 

Best regards,

 

Russ

[Mayoff]

I am sorry to hear you make such a hard lined choice about the product. Retrospect 8 uses a very different data format from prior versions. In fact, some of the limitations for not reading the older data in the first 8.0 release are due to major changes in how data is handled by the hardware/OS since the Power PC days. The data structures are just not the same. Very complex filtering has to be added to Retrospect to handle the old data structures.

 

8.0 can read 7.5 and 7.6 Windows backup data. It can probably also handle 7.0 for Windows backup data.

 

Will pre-6.0 data be readable in 8.0? It may be readable automatically when the 6.x support is added. We probably will not be testing backups written with version 2.x, 3.x and 4.x.

 

Using the older version of Retrospect to read the data is similar to the user needing to make sure they still have the old type of tape drive that is compatible with the tapes. You can't buy a new LTO drive and expect it to read AIT Tapes.

 

Going forward, Mac and Windows Retrospect use the same data format and we offer cross platform compatibility.

Edited March 23, 2009 by Guest

[EricU]

Being able to restore from older, archived Retrospect Backup Sets is an important capability. For the time being, we are relying on 6.x to provide that functionality. Once we can read 6.x sets with 8.0, then we can formulate a plan for reading older Backup Sets, too. Robin isn't saying we aren't going to do it, just that the plan for the time being is to employ 6.x for reading and restoring from older sets.

 

Cheers,

e

[rhwalker]

Thanks, Eric, for the clarification. Our law firm's requirements may be very different from those of other users. It's why we never recycle tapes. We have the need to know what was on a given machine (server, client) on any given day, and to be able to retrieve those documents for litigation discovery. Recent changes to the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure for electronic discovery can cause big problems.

 

Russ

[rhwalker]

Using the older version of Retrospect to read the data is similar to the user needing to make sure they still have the old type of tape drive that is compatible with the tapes. You can't buy a new LTO drive and expect it to read AIT Tapes.

Exactly. That's why, at each step of migration to new hardware, we tested that old backups could be read. We saved away our old tape drives that made Retrospect backups under Retrospect 2.x and 4.x (under ASIP) just for this reason, so that a different drive, perhaps with a different head alignment or different hardware compression algorithm, wouldn't cause the backups to be irretrievable. It affected our choice of interface technologies (SCSI) for current backup hardware, and we made sure, during pre-deployment testing and evaluation, that the older drives still worked on the newer HBA cards. It required careful migration from our ASIP hardware to Mac OS X because older Apple hardware cannot even mount an OS X share.

 

The need is not to be able to do "bare metal restores", because we will never again run Mac OS 7.x or ASIP, but the need will never disappear for some users, such as our firm, to be able to retrieve documents from our old backups, regardless how old the backups are.

 

Our needs may not be the same as others, but, nonetheless, they are our needs and some of those needs are deal breakers. For backup software, vendor commitment to retrieval of old data has always been our second most important critera (second only to reliability).

 

I hope you understand that I'm not being spiteful or just "stomping my little feet". This is a real requirement for some organizations, and it happens to be a real and important requirement for us.

 

I have no problem at all with requiring Retrospect 6.1 to be used to retrieve older backups, and there is no requirement that Retrospect 6.1 be able to run concurrently with Retrospect 8.x (or 9.x or ...). For example, at each migration step we have had to maintain the ability to read WordPerfect Mac documents made years ago because we had one attorney who insisted on using WordPerfect, and therefore we will always have the need to be able to open old WordPerfect documents by one means or another. Same for AppleWorks files made on Apple II long before that. For some of us, it requires each migration step to be done very carefully.

 

The problem is that Retrospect 6.1 apparently can only retrieve from Retrospect 6.0 and 6.1 backup sets, not from 2.x or 4.x. I may be mistaken on this point, but I don't expect an update to Retrospect 6.1 to fix whatever broke the ability to retrieve from 2.x and 4.x backup sets.

 

Russ

Edited March 23, 2009 by Guest

[rhwalker]

Robin, just to be clear, in case you have forgotten the perspective of your customers, there is only one function that a backup program has to perform, namely, to reliably restore from backups that it has made. Any other frill, whether spiffy user interface, scheduling, etc., is nice but is just fluff.

 

If Retrospect 8 cannot restore backups made by earlier versions of Retrospect, then Retrospect 8 is not Retrospect because it cannot perform that essential function. It would be less disingenuous to just kill the product and give the new code base a different name rather than deceive customers into believing that they could trust Retrospect to restore backups made by Retrospect.

 

If a decision is made to eliminate the capability to restore from backups made by Retrospect 6.x, or 5.x, or 4.x, or 2.x - whatever cutoff point is chosen - then purchasers of "Retrospect 8" need to pause before purchase because the same decision, not to restore earlier Retrospect 8 backups, could be made by Retrospect 9, 10, etc.

 

Just so you clearly understand why customers purchase a backup program.

 

Russ

[EricU]

Robin, just to be clear, in case you have forgotten the perspective of your customers...

 

If Retrospect 8 cannot restore backups made by earlier versions of Retrospect, then Retrospect 8 is not Retrospect because it cannot perform that essential function. It would be less disingenuous to just kill the product and give the new code base a different name rather than deceive customers into believing that they could trust Retrospect to restore backups made by Retrospect.

Russ: We appreciate your feedback, but not the disparaging tone. If being disparaging was not your intention, then you might want to make that more clear, because that's not how your comments are reading.

 

I already indicated above that the ability to restore from previous backup sets is important. There's no need to keep beating a dead horse. We get it.

 

Thanks.

 

e

 

[rhwalker]

Eric,

 

Disparaging was not and never has been my intention. I understand well the tradeoffs in the software development and release cycle. I appreciate well the enormous effort that has been made thus far by the Retrospect programmers, and I am sure that many people who believe in the product have championed the Mac platform's version and this great investment in the new code base. My goal was only clarity and lack of ambiguity, and I don't think that you have seen or will see a single disparaging comment from me about Retrospect 8 (nee X).

 

I thought that this question had been fully answered before in another thread in the Beta forum, and that assurance had been given that EMC understood the importance of restoring past backups, but Robin's answers upthread:

 

Our plan is to update 8.0 to support 6.x sets but we do not plan to test with backup data from backup sets before 6.x.

and

 

Retrospect 8 uses a very different data format from prior versions. In fact, some of the limitations for not reading the older data in the first 8.0 release are due to major changes in how data is handled by the hardware/OS since the Power PC days. The data structures are just not the same. ...

 

Will pre-6.0 data be readable in 8.0? It may be readable automatically when the 6.x support is added. We probably will not be testing backups written with version 2.x, 3.x and 4.x.

made me question whether there was some perceived misunderstanding about the need to restore from older backups, and whether the commitment to provide some path for restoring older backups had been rethought. I'm even open to an "add-on" option to enable restores from older backups. It's the capability that is important, not the means.

 

I also understand and appreciate Robin's position in providing support for the product. He doesn't write the code.

 

Thanks for the clarification, and I'll stop beating the dead horse as long as the importance of being able to restore from past backups remains understood.

 

I offer my genuine apology if my comments were taken as disparaging, because that was not my intent.

 

Russ

[EricU]

Thanks for the clarification, and I'll stop beating the dead horse as long as the importance of being able to restore from past backups remains understood.

Completely.

 

I offer my genuine apology if my comments were taken as disparaging, because that was not my intent.

That's good to hear! I would not be pleased if a simple miscommunication on our part resulted in you hating us. ;-)

 

[CallMeDave]

the need will never disappear for some users, such as our firm, to be able to retrieve documents from our old backups, regardless how old the backups are.

That's why I don't understand your position of "... we will just move on to another solution..."

 

Given the description of your needs, you will ALWAYS REQUIRE ACCESS TO RETROSPECT "CLASSIC" IN ORDER TO RETRIEVE THE FILES STORED IN YOUR TAPE ARCHIVE!

 

So when you change to "another solution," that solution will not be compatible. In fact, if "It would be less disingenuous to ... give the new code base a different name," why don't you just give the new program your own nickname (Rumprospect?) and treat it exactly as you would treat whatever other solution you might decide to use instead?

 

If the reason is solely due to EMC's decisions, and your perception of what they consider to be important, then it does indeed sound to me as if you are just stomping your feet (I am in no position to call anyone else, or their feet, little!).

 

Bru will never be able to restore tapes made with Retrospect 2, no matter what their corporate commitment might be. Starting fresh with Rumprospect would be no different (except it wouldn't be as mind-numbingly cumbersome as the other existing solutions currently available).

 

Just my little opinion.

 

Dave

 

OK, re-reading before sending (an excellent habit I should get into more reliably) I see "I have no problem at all with requiring Retrospect 6.1 to be used to retrieve older backups...

{snip}

"The problem is that Retrospect 6.1 apparently can only retrieve from Retrospect 6.0 and 6.1 backup sets, not from 2.x or 4.x."

 

Given that, why didn't you switch to another solution last month when you first heard (here on the board) that Retrospect 6 can't restore Retrospect 2 or 4 Backup Sets (a contention that I would view with suspicion until hearing directly from Richard Zulch and/or Laurie Gill)?

 

Still confused as to your thought process, given your usage needs as you've well explained.

[mdeh]

Hi Robin,

May I ask a question somewhat related to some of the issues raised in this thread.

 

I have always wondered why it would not be possible, with the release of an update , to release a utility that would do the following.

 

Allow the user to retrieve all the old backups, do whatever is necessary to those backup sets to **maintain** the snapshot ability, then simply back them up/resave with the new version. The **key** would be that one does not loose that ability to filter the searches just as one would with the older version.

 

I really do feel for the person with the legal firm. But, I do not think that this is unique to retrospect. One could argue perhaps that the legal requirements would force one to keep the actual versions **and** hardware lest it be argued that the later hardware and versions have altered the data. I actually foresee a day when there will be special services that maintain old hardware and applications for this very purpose. I am not sure if the law has even addressed or thought about this.

For the rest of us, an approach I mentioned above may be acceptable.

Thanks in advance.