Apple's Backup and Retrospect?

[speekez]

I'd like a bit of input on backup software for my Mac Pro. The goal: to backup the contents of one or more hard disks to another disk. I do photography, so I don't feel a big need for RAID 0. RAID 1 is an option, but I'm not sure I want to back-up (mirror) the entire contents of one disk onto another disk -- plus, I believe RAID 1 is instantaneous with it's mirror -- giving me no time to restore from an older copy if I so chose.

Apple's "Backup" software and "Retrospect" seem to be the two big choices. Any advocates for either of these softwares? Do both of these programs have the ability to recognize only the files that have changed since the last backup, and will update only those files? Otherwise, seems like a lot of disk wear & tear to backup the entire disk from scratch

Sounds like Apple's Time Machine may introduce some other options as well.

thanks!

 

[yellow]

Imo, RAID is NOT a backup solution.

Retrospect definitely has the ability to do incremental backups. I really don't know about Apple's backup. I suspect it's not very user configurable.

 

[FrankBlack]

I have to use Retrospect on the job. It works, but the interface is not the best. In addition, the software has a lot of "weird things" about it. Not very Mac-like at all. Heck, Veritas Backup Exec on windows has a more user-friendly interface than Retrospect. ("Search your feelings, you know it to be true"!)

I use Apple's backup application at home, and I have had no issues with it at all. It does incremental backups just fine. And yes, I have done some good sized restores with it. It has a lot of built-in backup plans for the consumer market. If those don't work for you, you can quickly do up a backup plan of your own.

A lot of people are raving about Superduper. I have not tried it yet, but a lot of people love it. A full license is $27.95, at shirt-pocket.com. Given the stellar reviews for this App, it might be worth checking out.

Most external firewire and USB drives on the market now come with Backup software. CMS' Bounceback Express is one of these, but I have not tried this either.

 

[speekez]

thank you!

from what I read on Apple's site, it sounds like it would be sufficient and stable. Also good to know it can operate with incremental backups!