mysecret Posted August 9, 2003 Report Share Posted August 9, 2003 I have three other partners and have been put in charge of finding and then testing backup software for the four of us. I have used only one other backup program before (Veritas Backup Exec) which was very difficult to use and unreliable. That said, I have high hopes for Retrospect 6.5 and hope people here will help me learn the in's and out's of Retrospect and any quirks it may have. I want to use it with some sort of "system" to make backing up on a daily basis something that all four of us will, in fact, do. We each have an XP Pro machine with plenty of hard drive space, ram, speedy CPU's and are planning to use a Pioneer DVD-RW DVR-105 for all backing up. Which media is recommended to use with Retrospect and the Pioneer? Should I get only one brand (TDK, Verbatim, Maxell etc.), limit myself to a select few or can I choose from any? Any other tips on getting started would be appreciated. We have already had one mishap that took over a week to recover from and we never want to go through that experience again. Thanks for any help from this newbie! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kaikow Posted August 9, 2003 Report Share Posted August 9, 2003 I used to use Veritas Backup Exec and it's successor BackUp MyPC. Actually, in my opinion, Retrospect is more difficult to use, at first, but it is a better product and worth the effort in learning. There are a number of useful tutorials and articles at the Dantz web site that will ease your task. And read the Retrospect User's Guide. I purchased a printed copy to make things easier. You should check the documentation that came with your Pioneer drive, as well, as Pioneer's web site. Most, if not all, drive manucaturers have a list of recommended media for EACH model of drive. In some case, such as Plextor, they go even further and supply the actual part numbers for the media. Use only media recommended by the drive manufacturer. You should be able to select from any of the media recommended by the drive manufactuer. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mysecret Posted August 10, 2003 Author Report Share Posted August 10, 2003 Thanks Howard, Since there are just four of us, hopefully this will not become a major event in my life. I spent a very long time learning Backup Exec and it never made accurate backups. I think the reason I spent such a long time on it was because it was flawed. You recommended reading the User's Guide. Is that the same thing as "Contents" under Help? If not, can I download it from somewhere? (I only have the 30 day trial now). I have been skimming through Help and plan to go back through it more carefully today. Finally, two more questions: 1. Will Retrospect work correctly using rewritable DVD's or only write once DVD's? 2. My plan was to create a Disaster Recovery DVD for each one of us to copy the OS, all software programs and the individual settings that each one of us use. This could be done with one DVD per person and then updated with any major changes to the software such as when MS Office 2004 is released. Seperate from that another backup would be done daily, scheduled for when we are not there, to copy all the new or changed data that each of us produces daily. I don't think our situation is out of the norm and I don't want to reinvent the wheel. I do want to have a backup system that is rock-solid, easy for each one of us to follow each day, implement it and then get back to our work. Please give me your thoughts. Is this sound, flawed... or is there an easier way? Thanks for helping! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mysecret Posted August 10, 2003 Author Report Share Posted August 10, 2003 I did find the User's Guide and am reading it as I get time. I have also made a complete backup of the C: Drive on my computer with a rewritable DVD and no errors. That's my progress so far and I guess answers two of my earlier questions. Do DVD Rewrites have different speeds? My Pioneer 105 will either write or read at 4x but I'm not sure which is which. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kaikow Posted August 10, 2003 Report Share Posted August 10, 2003 I use external USB hard drives for backup. I have two on my main system, with only 1 connected at a time to protect from damage from power surges. Each USB drive is 80GB, which is more than the total of the internal hard drives on the system (about 64GB). I use a Retrospect script for each drive, swapping drives every few daze. I backup the Retrospect catalog files to CD-RW. I backup the config65.dat to ZIP and CD-RW. I also have a SCSI tape drive, but it is only 4/8GB Traven, so I won't be using that too often, if at all, any more. It's actually less expensive to purchase external hard drives than to face the repeated costs of buying tapes after tapes ..., not to mention that tapes more often go bad than hard drives. Not to mention the time involved in swapping tapes. Last time I ran a full backup to tape with BUMP, it took about 16 hours to do copy and compare. Using BUMP to USB drive took about 3.5 hours, using Retrospect to USB drive took about 6.5 hours, with no need to be present to swap tapes. I'm not using DVD, but if the DVD writing software industry produces the same crap I see for CD-RW, I would rather trust a hard drive for backup than DVD drives. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mysecret Posted August 11, 2003 Author Report Share Posted August 11, 2003 Retrospect reported "No errors" on the only backup I have done so far using a really cheap (Five DVD's=$10.00) DVD rewrite disc. Is that reliable? If so I will continue to buy these cheapies! That's the good news. The bad news is that it took about 2 1/2 hours to backup only about 3.6 GB with verification turned on. Is that about right? Do you know if DVD Rewrites come in different speeds? If so, that could be why this first backup took so long. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kaikow Posted August 11, 2003 Report Share Posted August 11, 2003 Quote: gakumler said: Retrospect reported "No errors" on the only backup I have done so far using a really cheap (Five DVD's=$10.00) DVD rewrite disc. Is that reliable? If so I will continue to buy these cheapies! That's the good news. The bad news is that it took about 2 1/2 hours to backup only about 3.6 GB with verification turned on. Is that about right? Do you know if DVD Rewrites come in different speeds? If so, that could be why this first backup took so long. It is best to use only media recommended by the drive manufacturer. The speed if writing a DVD is very much dependent on the horsepower of the PC. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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