Subject: Re: [netatalk-admins] tape backup to a mac
From: Ethan Benatan (ethan+@pitt.edu)
Date: Tue May 18 1999 - 09:39:49 EDT
I understand not liking proprietary backup solutions, coming from the
unix world; the ones that I have seen really don't offer anything
beyond what the free ones do, and none that I have seen are really
very sophisticated.
Coming from the Mac world (and I have to say that one of the things I
like about this list is that most of us have feet in both camps) we
have different expectations. A backup program should just *work*,
with a short learning curve, and it should have very good error
detection, reporting, and recovery. Retrospect doesn't just write to
tape; it handles a lot of complexity under a simple user interface.
The thing I care most about in a backup program is reliability: it has
to work, and even more important (since everything fails, see the
second law of thermodynamics) is that it detect and report failures
and maintain the integrity of my backups. Retrospect does all this
and much more, including excellent media management, sophisticated
scheduling, and great client management. I can literally pop a CD in
any Mac on my network, boot it up, and restore it to *any historical
state* of *any Mac* that I have on tape with about 2 minutes of work.
I can browse through the catalog and find multiple old versions of
files to recover. Bottom line: it makes my life simpler. And it is
not particularly expensive: the software cost is about 2% of the cost
of the machine, for a midsize network*. How many hours do you have to
save to make it worth $30? I would dearly love to see (and would pay
for without hesitation) a unix client for Retrospect.
*20 $1500 machines for about $600 worth of software (retrospect plus two
10-packs).
Disclosure: I am a Dantz-certified retrospect partner- I don't sell
it, but I do support it.
Ethan
_____________
Ethan Benatan ethan+@pitt.edu http://www.pitt.edu/~ethan
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