Customer Reviews

Retrospect 7.6 Professional for Windows

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(6)

 

 

I am a high level geek and even I had a very hard time making this stinker work. I back up semi-regularly, thinking I'd never have to use the Retrospect backup. I use my laptop ALL of the time at work, and can't operate without it.

Then one day, I dropped my laptop HARD on my kitchen floor and the hard drive stopped working. The warranty would cover any damage to the laptop, but what about the data? Luckily, I had backed up ALL of my data using Retrospect just 48 hours prior.

The moment of truth was at hand!

Well, it took me 2.5 days of banging my head on the keyboard, and a lot of coffee and patience working with Retrospect, but I FINALLY got the hard drive restored EXACTLY as it had been at the time of my backup. It's as if nothing had happened.

HINT: you MUST install your OS _FIRST_ on your new drive before even attempting a DISATER RECOVERY with Retrospect. Don't expect to be able to just clone the image back to your new drive -- that would be too easy, and I think Retrospect is afraid of getting sued by Microsoft.

I had to learn about "backup sets", "recreating catalog files", "snapshots", etc. The wizards are awful -- not very intuitive in the least, and you have to go into "expert mode" to make it work right most of the time. Also, I had to fix a couple of boot errors along the way -- the computer thought it had two OS's on it. Additionally, I had to tell Retrospect to restore my registry and other settings (you'd think it would do this automatically being that you're doing a DISASTER RECOVERY).

Overall, a major pain in the [...]!

BUT, it works! It took me about 15 hours of work over 2.5 days, but I got it ALL back. So, the software does deliver a COMPLETE restoration when it really counts. Sure saved MY bacon!


Thanks Retrospect -- I think....

Backing up is not fun, but it is crucial. For a business, the reasons are obvious. For a home user, consider that more and more of your information is moving from paper to bits. Your snapshots, your music, your bank records, the list keeps growing.

What sets backup software apart from other applications (such as word processing) is that defects are extremely damaging. When Microsoft Word weirds out, you just slam your fist down and start writing your document again. If your backup software lets you down during a restore operation, it is a genuine catastrophe.

So stable backup software is essential. My strategy has been to seek out backup software that is marketed to both individual users, and enterprises, the larger the better!

Backup software marketed exclusively to enterprises is too expensive. Backup software marketed to individuals is unstable, just like (for example) Microsoft Money. If your backup software is used by large, powerful companies, then you can hope that these customers will be able to get bugs fixed quickly. YOU don't have the clout to get bugs fixed, but other customers do. You have to hope that the bug you find is making life unpleasant for a large, powerful corporate customer.

I have found two packages that fit this description: Ultrabac and Retrospect. Of the two, Retrospect has a much better feature set. Retrospect has had a feature called "Progressive backup" which is unusual (perhaps unique!) and extremely useful. Recently, Retrospect added a feature called "pruning" which is revolutionary. Nice going Retrospect!

The combination of these two features is simply outstanding. Each of my backup disks contains a "rolling" history of my data, going back over the last two monthes. I do a backup every night, and it requires no intervention on my part. Retrospect automatically deletes old backup data from my media ("pruning"), to prevent filling it up. Retrospect also avoids writing duplicate data to the backup media ("progressive backup"), thus extending the useful capacity of my backup disks.

The sophistication of this backup scheme motivates me to use multiple backup disks. The backup jobs on each backup disk are interdependent, so if there is ever a problem with one of them, all subsequent jobs on the backup disk are at risk. In my opinion, anyway.

So I alternate between two backup disks day by day. Each of these two backup disks contains a history of the state of my computer, going back 60 days, in increments of two days. So if I wish, I can restore the state of my computer to the way it was on any of the last 60 days. I can also retrieve individual files from those 60 days.

The latest version of Retrospect is rock-solid, the way backup software should be. It executes while I sleep, and it has not called attention to itself for as long as I can remember.

This is the backup system that I have dreamed about since I started buying my own computers.

I do have a few reservations about Retrospect. First, it is not that easy to learn how to use. No, it is not a nightmare, but it could have been simpler. As an experienced user, this does not bother me. Your mileage may vary. Second, I was not happy about the 7.0 version of this product. It lived its entire life with some non-trivial shortcomings. I won't go into details, because this is now ancient history. However, I don't think that this is reasonable for a backup program. Finally, it may be the case that EMC is losing interest in the product. There have been layoffs and rumors. You can find these yourself on Google (<cough> The Register <cough>). This is a bit speculative, but it is worth mentioning.

Do these sound like major complaints? That's right, they are not! Retrospect is as good as it gets for the home or small business.

These comments are closely related to David Arnstein's review and comments below with which I fully agree.

I am a CPA who requires accurate, reliable backups for all of my programs and files. There is no margin for error. Since December 2006 I had been using the backup software that was bundled with my Buffalo Technologies TeraStation. In early August this software stopped working reliably after issues that were created by Microsoft Technical Support. I remembered a favorable write up on this product by Consumer Reports and started my investigation. My other planned alternative was Symantec's Backup Executive. I contacted Dantz/EMC2 Insignia Technical Support (866-362-1111 or 800-225-4880) for pre-sales information after seeing the Professional version of this product on Amazon's website. The information that I received was outstanding. They provided me with the following recommendations:

1) Go to the EMC2 Insignia website and download the fully featured 30-day (really 45 days) trial version;

2) Go to this website for a movie/video tutorial for every feature of the software http://www.emcinsignia.com/supportupdates/video/ and spend the required time learning how to use the software. It takes several hours, beats reading the 400-page user guide, and is time well spent. You won't regret it. You can view all 54 separate tutorials or just the ones that you require;

3) Call EMC2 Insignia T/S at any time during the 45-day trial period for FREE T/S from professionals who are located in CA;

4) If you like the product, buy it from Amazon at the end of the trial period insert your license key code and continue to use the application without having to uninstall/install the software which drives the Windows Registry nuts. This is a Microsoft issue!

There are too many options that are available to you in the software to go through in these comments. I am continuing to use my Buffalo Network Attached Storage (NAS) device. To keep this simple I'll cover the three back up strategies that I use:

Backup #1 - back up your entire system whenever you change hardware or software and create a new disaster recovery CD. I also run this program weekly.

Backup #2 - I save all of the files that I create in separate folders (not in the Program folder)on my HD. I back up all of these files daily.

"Duplicate" Back Up. This is a Restrospect option. Backups #1 & #2 require the use of Retrospect for a Restore. The "Duplicate" option allows you to do the same as Backup #2 and then retrieve a separate file to drag-and-drop it back to your HD without the need to use Retrospect.

I can't speak for everyone who reads these reviews or address even most of the individual back up requirements that you might have. My only recommendations are for you to do your own investigation of this product and then spend the time to go through the video tutorials from the Internet. Afterwards make your own determination as to whether Retrospect 7.5 Professional is an excellent solution for your own requirements. It is working perfectly for me.

EMC Retrospect 7.5 Professional for Windows is VERY full featured, as evidenced by the manuscript sized manual. It contains many very useful advanced features BUT, if you're a novice to backing up, you can just pretty much run through the intuitive wizard and get a good backup of your data. I love the fact that it has a disaster recovery option, allowing you to make a bootable-cd to boot to in case of operating system failure. I work in Information Technology and still had to read the manual to figure out exactly how to use some of the advanced features, like using the incrememtal backup and scheduling automated client backups. But one can install it and run manual backups that are as thorough right out of the box. This is a great product and will give you much peace of mind about keeping your data safely backed up. I highly recommend it.

On the surface Retrospect appears very easy to use. Start using it and it is much harder. There are a few different procedures to follow to do a good backup, and while it has a wizard, the wizard does not warn you of certain things. For example, you want to use "Duplicate" rather than "Backup" because you will get complete files in your backup. It does come with a very comprehensive manual, and I will admit to not reading the whole darn thing. Once you get it going, it will do everything you need it to, and quickly. It's been good for my small business and home use. I recommend it because I have not found anything better. But study it, and call tech support if needed. They were pretty good.

Being a Macintosh computer user for many years, I used Regtrospect Express Backup and never had any problems. Now, with a Windows laptop for Windows XP, I tried the new EMC Retrospect 7.5 Professional for Windows. I first tired the free trial version, and it worked beautifully. I then bought the regular edition. All I had to do was insert a new identification code and everything worked well. I created a disaster recovery disk without any problems. There's a huge printed manual that comes with the program too. I haven't tried the Macintosh version, but I'm sure it will be top-notch.

I reluctantly purchased Retrospect Professional 7.5 because I could find no other product with the feature set I wanted. My previous experience with Restrospect Express HD was horrible, so this took a big (or dumb) leap of faith. The bottom line is that this is a powerful product that takes a serious commitment to learn how to use. I read through the nearly 400 page manual three times before I had any real idea of how to use the product effectively. That said, I like the product's flexibility and its incremental backups. So far I have had no crashes, but I was able to restore a crashed coomputer with Retrospect Express without much difficulty (there were other [non]usability issues with that product).

Since a reliable incremental backup is what I was looking for, and I think am getting it with Retrospect Professional 7.5, I give the product a tentative 4 stars. Whenever my computer crashes, I'll be back with a followup review.

I've used Retrospect on and off for 10 years. I've been using 7 and 7.5 for about 4 months. 7.5 now supports Windows Vista and I'm using it to back-up 2 PCs to a SimpleTech SimpleShare NAS 500 Office Storage Server on my home network. I already had to use it to recover an entire hard drive that crashed and it worked. I did have to recreate the index when restoring since by default it was stored on the crashed hard drive. Now that I have re-installed, I am forcing the index to be stored on my back-up server instead. This really ought to be the default, but I suppose it wouldn't work right on a tape drive. What's wrong with this software is the poor documentation, poor avenues for help, and the frankly quite awful EMC website. None are really designed to help home users. If you can get past that, the software is quite excellent. A serious tip: when you see errors that files aren't backed-up, you likely have bad sectors on your hard drive - regardless of the reason or error code stated in the log file. I never found any clue of this in the help system or by searching EMC's site or the web. Often the error codes given by Retrospect are too vague to be helpful. So vague that you don't know if the error is because of the source drive (reading) or the destination drive (writing) of a file. By downloading and running a low-level hard drive utility (SeaTools from Seagate for Seagate and Maxtor drives) you can find out if it is your hard drive for sure. I have found Windows checkdisk and scandisk to be unable to detect real problems. Seagate has excellent free phone support as well. I found out that hard drives in both my PCs were failing even though Windows utilities had no clue. Since replacing both drives I have not had any problems or errors reported by Retrospect. Why doesn't Retrospect suggest that impending hard drive failure might be the cause of back-up errors? I haven't a clue, but now you know too.

This company has a great product. The steps you use are unique from others and therefore some feel it should not be used by the majority. I am of the opinion let the manufactuer spend their time making a reliable product and I'll spend my time learning to make it work. File and Directory selection were the most confusing steps for me because Retro does it differently but once I understood it was a breeze. For me the wizard made it hard to understand but when I went to advanced mode then it all became clear.
Certainly not for the New Kid on the Block but experienced file manipulators should not shy away from this product.

I'm using this product as a backup server for files on three PCs. One workstation in the house, a family laptop, and a work laptop. I am not using it for a full hard drive/ OS recovery, just incremental backups of important files and user directories. The software is great. For the first few weeks I enabled the email feature to email me upon each backup, successful or not. Each scheduled back up worked well, how ever I had to use windows scheduler to wake up the workstation from hibernate. No problem for me, but it might be tough for a novice user. The interface took a few hours to learn, but it has everything you really need. I would not call it overly complex, but it may be a bit much for a home user. I have tested the restore on many occasions and have found it to be reliable. The reason I purchased this software was that Acronis restore failed when I tested it. I really wanted to buy the Acronis package, since its image backup has saved my bacon in the past, but the normal everyday backup was really bad. In short, I would buy this product if you need to continuously backup your files on a regular basis. I would not buy it if your intent is to restore a complete OS.