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From
TNPC issue #3.14...
Windows 2000 3rd Party Utilities (Backup): Part 5
by Al Gordon
July 6, 2000
Long-time TNPCers will recall that when we (or anyone else for
that matter) provide a checklist for making changes on your PCs,
Step #1 is always "backup."
And that requires backup software. The old favorite, Veritas
Backup Exec Desktop, is now ready for Win2K, and there is a new
contender out there: Dantz Retrospect.
I chided Veritas in this series for not having Backup Exec
Desktop ready to go upon release of Windows 2000 even though they
had written the backup applet that comes with Win2K. The company,
like others, says that the late completion of the Win2K code set
them back. But in any case, they recently released Version 4.4.1.
This is a Windows 2000-ONLY implementation. If you run other OSs,
4.2 is still necessary. The company is readying a 5.0 series of
products, due later this year, that will be the first major
overhaul of Backup Exec's feature set in years. No details have
been released other than that the company plans versions
specifically tailored to the needs (and time demands) of home,
small business, and corporate users.
Thanks to mergers and spin-offs, the product has had more
incarnations than John Travolta. Originally Arcada Backup, it
became Seagate Backup, and then Veritas took over the title role.
It also is shipped with many backup devices as an OEM product re-
branded under the device manufacturer's name and appears in
"Lite" form in both Windows 98 and Windows 2000.
Backup Exec Desktop is the flagship version for individual users,
offering support for a much wider range of devices and providing
more backup options than the other versions. Device support is
one of the keys here -- the OEM versions work only the devices
with which they are shipped while the Windows applets mainly work
with tape drives. The "full" product allows you to use the same
software to backup to, say, a tape drive and a CD burner.
Backup Exec Desktop is organized around "jobs," which you set up
to include a particular group of files and give specific
instructions (such as whether or not the backup should be
compressed or the results compared against the files on your hard
drive). The interface is simple and it has a good cataloging
function, which is crucial to the backup/restore process.
Launching it is simple, and you can choose between using a wizard
or manually creating a job.
http://www.thenakedpc.com/t/314/tr.cgi?backup1
For the first time in years, though, there is a challenger
emerging: Retrospect 5.11. Dantz's application is tailored for
network backup, but the company is offering a desktop version as
well. Its origins as a program to be used by corporate IT pros is
evident in its complex interface that may scare off some average
users. But it has a key feature that makes it worthy of notice:
what it calls "snapshots."
When Retrospect runs, it makes a full catalog of all the files
that were on your system when the job was executed, even if it
was just an incremental backup job and only a few files actually
were backed up. You can then restore a snapshot and not only put
files back on your system but get rid of files that have been
added since. Thus, if your system is hit by a virus today, you
can roll it back to yesterday. Typically, backup software only
adds files to your system, never removes them.
The downside is that it takes longer to learn the interface and
the snapshot process itself is somewhat time-consuming. You can,
on an incremental backup pass, very well spend more time
cataloging than backing up. On the other hand, its scripting
language is powerful and simple. I found myself hesitant to use
Retrospect simply because of the time and difficulty required to
set up a manual backup to my specifications. It is best run
automatically using the scripting features.
But the snapshot feature is a really valuable approach and once
Retrospect gets a little more user friendly, Dantz may give
Veritas a little run for the money in the backup world. (Note:
the link below is to Amazon which slightly cheaper than Beyond,
but the Amazon site says it can only ship within the USA.)
http://www.thenakedpc.com/t/314/tr.cgi?backup2
You can reach Al Gordon at:
mailto:algordon@TheNakedPC.com
Copyright © 2000, PRIME Consulting Group, Inc. and Dan Butler.
All Rights Reserved.
The Naked PC is a trademark of PRIME Consulting Group, Inc.
ISSN: 1522-4422
You may reprint an article from TNPC as long as you show the
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Windows 2000 3rd Party Utilities (Backup): Part 5
by Al Gordon
(This article originally appeared in The Naked PC
newsletter #3.14, subscribe at http://www.TheNakedPC.com)
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