Seek Nuance

An update from my prior post about CrashPlan:

Code 42′s Matthew Dornquast generously helped me resolve the kinks in my CrashPlan installation. I misunderstood how the consumer edition handled NAS drives. Matthew also explained the firewall changes needed for CrashPlan Pro.

The consumer edition (CrashPlan) can backup to a NAS folder. The folder simply has to be mounted via the Finder, and then selected as a destination. I don’t know why this didn’t work when I first tried it yesterday — PEBKAC strikes again! At any rate, the correct information is: Yes, CrashPlan consumer edition can backup to a folder on a NAS.

Read more…

UPDATE 7/27/09: Since writing this post, I’ve made additional discoveries and corrected a misunderstanding about CrashPlan’s operation. Rather than changing this one, I wrote another post about CrashPlan.

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I bought Retrospect 8 in March. It’s been a disaster. We customers are doing the QA that EMC should have done. The two support forums contain complaints and bug reports that almost defy belief.

Out of past loyalty to the Retrospect product line, not wanting to again evaluate backup applications, and simple laziness inertia, I’ve stayed with it. Each Retrospect 8 update since March has fixed bugs, and although it cumulatively hasn’t been enough, I’ve hoped that the bugfix pace would pick up and/or reach a usability critical mass.

For reasons I won’t go into, I reached my limit today. I’ve hoped EMC would do the right thing by its unpaid volunteer QA department customers, and release a big update that fixed the serious Epic Fails. Yet it still hasn’t done so, four months after initial release. So I’ve decided to find another backup solution.

Commenter “Daniel” recommended CrashPlan Pro as an alternative. I gave it a try.

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On Monday, EMC released Retrospect 8.1. Here’s the lowdown:

• There is still no user manual. This is shameful for a product that was released for sale three months ago.
• The engine — console communications are better.
• The console UI is getting better, but it’s still goofy in some respects.
• In the support forums, there still are reports of spurious problems with intra-application communication, and backup management.

Bottom line: I still give this product a thumbs-down. Until, at a minimum, they release a solid user manual, and fix enough bugs so that it feels like a solid, you-bet-your-data product. As things stand now, I’m sorry I bought it.

For some background, read my previous post about EMC Retrospect 8.0.

An update to my earlier reviews of Retrospect 8.0 for Macintosh.

1. There have now been two updates to the product since its release on March 22.
2. It still has a ton of problems.
3. It still is not at a minimally acceptable level of quality or performance.
4. It still sucks.
5. It is still a Failboat.
6. It is still not acceptable.
7. You should still not buy it.

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EMC has released one update to Retrospect 8.0 since my review. They fixed a slew of bugs, but it’s still not yet ready for prime time. Don’t buy this product.

I haven’t kept records of the bad software releases of my life, but I think this has been the worst software release I’ve ever experienced. I’m inclined to fault the company’s management, and not the development team. Someone wanted this out the door before it was ready, for reasons doubtless having to do with company politics or a quarterly status report.

Rule #1 of any development: Do Not Shortchange QA. Unless you are far down testing’s typical negative exponential curve, $1 of missed QA will result in at least $10 of support costs.

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What do you look for in a backup solution?

If you have only one system, you might choose a local FireWire or USB disk, and a simple quasi-real-time application, like Time Machine.

If you have multiple systems, you have to consider multiple local disks and backup applications, or one central target (a tape, NAS, whatever) with one or multiple applications. Local will be faster and cheaper in isolation, but you’ll have multiplying station costs. And the (potentially extreme) hassle of monitoring multiple independent backups.

This quickly growing ball of hair makes you consider more capable alternatives, like ChronoSync backing up to central storage.

For my home backups, I’ve been using EMC Retrospect for years. First, when we were a Windows household and Dantz was still an independent company; and then, after an ill-fated switch to Memeo when we switched to Macs, we returned to Retrospect 6.0 for Macintosh.

Sunday, EMC released Retrospect 8.0 for Macintosh, an eagerly-awaited update to its Macintosh backup product. I’m now using it in my home network, which consists of an iMac (running the new Retrospect client), a MacBook Pro (running the Retrospect 8.0 engine and console), a 2TB RAIDed LinkStation Pro Duo NAS, an Airport Extreme running in 802.11n-only mode, and CAT5e FTP cable.
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I upgraded my wife’s 24″ 2.8GHz iMac memory to 4GB. This required replacing the two 1GB DIMMs with two 2GB DIMMs.

So. I now have two spare 1GB 800MHz DDR2 SDRAM modules. What to do with them?

A quick perusal of eBay indicates they might fetch $20 each. Maybe. Is it worth the effort to sell them?

I can’t believe this is even a question. There’s 2GB of fast memory sitting on my desk! And I’m wondering if it’s worth the hassle to photograph them, compose the eBay listing, answer e-mails from prospective buyers, and then take them down to the post office. All to net $30 (probably) or $40 (if I’m lucky).

$30 wouldn’t even cover dinner for two at The 5 Spot.
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EMC released Beta 2. I’m going to give it a shot this weekend.

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Update @ 1/25: I tried it. Specifying the media for disk backup sets didn’t work, and I aborted after fiddling with it for 15 minutes.

I downloaded the public Beta 1 of EMC Retrospect 8.0 for Macintosh.

History

For years, I used Retrospect to back up my Windows machines. When I switched to Macs at home, I looked for a better backup tool, and eventually tried Memeo LifeAgent for Mac. It was terrible. Chastened, I switched back to Retrospect, this time for the Mac (of course). It did the job and was rock solid, but it had its quirks as Mac applications go.

Some time back, I read the announcement of the updated Retrospect for Mac product. And then I read about the public Beta. Should I trust the backup of my personal information to a Beta-level product? Sure, let’s throw caution to the wind.

So I gave the first Beta of Retrospect 8.0 for Macintosh a whirl.

There are many differences between the 6.2 and 8.0 products, in every area. There are significant changes to the backup architecture, how the application runs under the hood, and the UI. Read more…

I’ve been using EMC Retrospect for Macintosh, version 6.1 to back up our MacBook Pro and iMac. They’re backed up to a RAID NAS.

I’ve been happy with it, with these caveats:

• Its UI is un-Mac-like.
• It’s single-threaded, and its control window is completely unresponsive when it’s thinking real hard about something.
• Its file-analysis phase is slower than it needs to be.
• Its “sets,” “scripts,” and “containers” architecture is overkill for the consumer market. And the description of how all the nouns and verbs play together is thorough, but sometimes a little confusing.

I’m thinking of trying the public Beta 1 of its replacement, EMC Retrospect 8.0 for Macintosh, this weekend. If I don’t chicken out, I’ll report back with the results.

A new version has been released.