Backup software for tape drive?

[tomatonose]

Hi, I'm looking for some software to use with my Sony SCSI DAT backup drive. I'm trying to find an alternative for Retrospect which I find to be very flaky. Any suggestions?

[Wolfgang Eller]

The only one is Mezzo.

[jeremyroberts]

what version of retro? what OS? what scsi host?

retrospect is about as robust and reliable as they come... are you at the latest and greatest and comaptible versions of all the participants?

"flaky" is not a word you hear very often re; Retrospect.

[matmi]

The only one is Mezzo.

There isn't only one "truth", Retrospect run smoothly on our G5 server with AIT firewire peripheral...


Matteo Milani
www.greenmovie.com

[mtung]

I am also very satisfied with Retrospect.

mike

AIT2 drive on a G4 running OSX 10.4.4

[Wolfgang Eller]

There isn't only one "truth", Retrospect run smoothly on our G5 server with AIT firewire peripheral...

The question was ...alternativ to Retrospect... and not the "truth".
For me Mezzo is the only alternativ to Retrospect.

For the next time, read the question first and then the answer.

[Redbeard]

Hi, I'm looking for some software to use with my Sony SCSI DAT backup drive. I'm trying to find an alternative for Retrospect which I find to be very flaky. Any suggestions?

I also find Retrospect kind of flaky in the interface, though it does seem more stable in the actual backup and restore functions that Mezzo.

I hate that the catalog is not stored on the tape, I hate that it doesn't track project files over multiple drives/folders, I hate the interface.

That said, Mezzo also has problems with crashing and corrupting backup catalogs. They are improving it with every release, but it has some issues.

Having been a Mezzo user for years, I know the ins and outs of what to avoid to avoid crashes and how to recover from them when they still do occur.

I really with that Digidesign would come up with a backup solution of their own that was stable and tracked files.

[jeremyroberts]

I don't get it re: criticism of retrospect's interface.

The program doesn't do very much... you SIMPLY establish a source, a destination, apply filters and then it does the rest.

Retrospect is one of the few programs that I can say ALWAYS works, NEVER fails, and has enough low-level error correction to find problems with devices BEFORE they surface... Retro has saved my a** more than a few times -- reporting directory issues with a drive before it showed any symptoms. This allowed me to rebuild the directory, and proceed.

Data management is not an easy task - there are people who specialize in this... Data for audio or video recording is no different than data for corporate servers or data for a photography studio, etc... we don't generate nearly as much data as the video guys...

Audio has managed to get away on the cheap -- but now that we're using more and more data, people are discovering the "cheap way" isn't the best... the best way is to play with the big boys, and run a server, dedicated to backing up your data.

For those of you that complain about retrospect and multiple drives on a project -- SIMPLY make a script that finds all data from all drives and backs it up where you want it.

WHY would you want the catalog stored on the tape? In case of media failure, you are seriously hosed. With a catalog off-line, if one piece of media fails, your entire backup is not lost. Anyway, most of us run a backup of the server (where the catalogs live) separately... this is the built-in redundancy.

the there are the "but we're auido engineers/musicians, not computer geeks" -- well, someone's gotta do it. Either do it yourself or pay someone to do it for you. It's not all that difficult to setup a server for unattended, automated backups.

>> That said, Mezzo also has problems with crashing and corrupting backup catalogs

And Mezzo users keep coming back for more abuse. I don't get it.

[thierryd]

Hi Mike,

what version of Retrospect are you running and is the AIT2 drive a SCSI one?

We still run Retrospect 4.3 on a G4 with OS9.2.2 with AIT2 and Exabyte drives. But now with PT7, long filenames and files bigger than 2GB, OS9 is getting very old. Firewire drives start to get cheaper than AIT2 tapes...

I'm investigating if we should go to Retrospect 6 or 7 and a new SCSI card for the AIT2, since the ATTO LVD/SE SCSI card that we have is no longer compatible with OS X. I'm wondering if it's worth buying a UL4S just to discover that the next OS X release won't be compatible anymore...

Greetings,

Thierry

I am also very satisfied with Retrospect.

mike

AIT2 drive on a G4 running OSX 10.4.4

[Doug Rider]

I've worked with both Mac and PC versions of Retrospect using SCSI and FireWire. If you want to work with Mac, I would definitely get the latest OS X and Retrospect (just for the ability to track bigger catalog files and the speed increase over OS 9).

Regarding SCSI, you may want to look into ATTO's UL3S card, I believe the UL4S was optimized more for hard drives and may be more problematic with tape backup. I'm not sure of this, so you may want to contact http://www.emcinsignia.com/ for confirmation.

Also, Retrospect does write the current catalog file to the beginning of each tape in addition to writing it to the hard drive. There have been times when I've had to rebuild the catalog from tape due to a hard drive crash (can take a very long time depending on size of the catalog).

Data management for Protools can be a challenge. I set up each Protools project with a unique three or four digit number at the beginning of each Protools session/folder/file (tracked in an Excel/FileMaker file for reference), so that restores using "Enclosing folders starts with" is an easy search. I've found that the only way to make sure you get all the audio (which can get spread around to various drives depending on work habits or performance issues) is to "Save a Session Copy in..." to a separate hard drive (make sure to include All Audio) and just have that drive backed up. Retrospect's interface/terminology can be a bit convoluted, but I've gotten used to it and do find it very powerful.