Software advice: backup software

othello

i'm after some advice on backup software...



i have an old UMAX S900 running as my file server (its got a G4 chip and is running 10.2.8), and then a couple of macs in my studio which are workstations (running a mix of 10.2.8 and 10.3.2), including my PB (which is my main machine).



i want to be able to backup folders on the workstations to selected folders on the UMAX. sometimes this will be daily (just covering live projects), and other times it will be a weekly (an entire project backup as a safety net). i also want to do selected backups of projects to archive.



i've used retrospect for many years when i worked for other people, so i'm wondering if i should continue and buy that? or is there anything better out there??

alcimedes

i've had good luck with Retrospect, although it seems that lately their PC product is advancing faster than the Mac one.



there are some other options, although now it's been so long since i looked that i'm not sure what all they are.



i use it to back up approx. 50 clients at work, runs w/o a hitch.

kickaha

For small networks, there are literally a dozen to choose from now, that are either free or under $30. Retrospect is (IMHO) simply not worth the money any more.



At the command line, rsyncx and psync are both already included. If you can whip up a crontab, you're set. (If you don't know what that is, ignore. )



RsyncX.app is also a script generator for rsyncx that works fine, even if the UI is *crap*. Luckily, you only have to use it once for each setup you create, and then you can use another tool for scheduling. (Heck you can use iCal if you want. Have it 'open file' when an alarm goes off, and point it at the script RsyncX created.)



Dantz lost my business and respect a couple of years ago after me being a loyal customer for years prior. Their product is lagging, buggy on MacOS X in my experience, and simply not worth the extortion they like to charge for a lack of support.



Then there are their business practices... but that's another story.

othello

anyone got any specific product recommendations?

macaficionado

Ever thought about .Mac



You can make it Backup at certain times automatically on different places including an Apple server.

mattjohndrow

if it's just folders, then use http://www.versiontracker.com/dyn/moreinfo/macosx/1682



or



http://www.versiontracker.com/dyn/moreinfo/macosx/16975

othello

great!



they both look similar -- anyne used either??

mattjohndrow

Quote:

Originally posted by othello

great!



they both look similar -- anyne used either??

i like filesync a little better than folder synchronizer

othello

thanks i'll give it a go

mattjohndrow

Quote:

Originally posted by othello

thanks i'll give it a go

not a problem

kickaha

RsyncX 2.0 is out.



Am playing with it now, will come back with a more detailed report, but the GUI is better, the codebase is now based on rsync 2.6.0 (MAJOR new features in it, and speed boosts), and it just looks to be much much sweeter.



Did I mention it's free?



Apple includes an rsync with MacOS X, but it's the vanilla Unixy rsync, which ignores all HFS+ metadata and resource forks. (Ie, it breaks your stuff.) RsyncX adds HFS+ support and some GUI tools, otherwise it's identical.

madmax559

www.bacula.org



very nice multi os free tool

rok

i like apple's backup utility now that it's version 2. it still annoys me though that it checks for a valid .mac connection before it'll let you do thing like burn backups to cd (what if i'm, i dunno, on the road with my laptop??? hello, mcfly???) but the user interface is as intuitive as it gets.



retrospect survives off people who got it long ago and get cheap upgrade fees (it's often how i think intuit can still sell quicken with a straight face EVERY YEAR), but buying it new these days just isn't a good value. dantz would serve themselves well to find some user interface designers soon...

alcimedes

is there another viable option when backing up 50-75 clients per day? (other than Retrospect)

kickaha

rsyncx.



No kidding.



I use it to back up several laptops to a central server, and then back up the server to two mirrored drives, with incremental backups.



Works like a charm.

alcimedes

oh yeah. does it work on PC's? i read through their page, but didn't see anything. we're not a Mac only shop.

kickaha

The standard rsync does indeed work on PCs. And RsyncX will save that metadata and resource fork info to non-HFS+ drives and restore it correctly later.



It's really quite nice.



Caveat: I've never used the PC version, only seen the discussion on the rsync developer mailing list I subscribe to.



The website for the base command line tool that RsyncX is based on can be found here.

shetline

Quote:

Originally posted by Kickaha

The standard rsync does indeed work on PCs. And RsyncX will save that metadata and resource fork info to non-HFS+ drives and restore it correctly later.

How does it handle file name incompatibilities, if at all? That's the biggest problem I've run into moving file from Mac to PC... you hit a file with a name that's too long, a question mark or other special character, and BAM! The copy operation (be it a command-line "cp" or a Finder drag-and-drop) dies.



If either rsync or RsyncX can get around that problem, I'd be very pleased.