[OS X TeX] OT: Backup software

[Alan Litchfield]

To be honest with you, I am not sure why you can't do that.

Seems to me all you have to do is:
1. Choose Restore-Selected Files or Restore-Find Files
2. In the dialog that appears choose the source and snapshot
3. Choose the destination
4. Then if you are choosing what file to restore click on Files Chosen or if
you are searching for a particular file give its name or folder name, or if
you want to be more specific, click on More Choices so you can search using
dates, etc.

Provided Retrospect has created snapshots for each backup I can see no reason
why you can't get your file back.

In the 10 or so years I've used it I haven't really had any issues with
Retrospect, except its speed over a network and poor backward compatibility. I
would be cautious about changing over to another backup system until I had
successfully backed up and restored data over a period of time. In which case
you'd want to use 2 back up systems in parallel for a while (6-12 months).

Backward compatibility: I have 2 versions of Retro. now because 3 years ago I
switched backup onto a Windows machine, but the old backup files cannot be
read by the newer version. So if you do swap I'd have a look at their
development history too.

Just a few thoughts.

Alan

Gary L. Gray wrote:
>
> On Oct 9, 2006, at 8:11 PM, Herbert Schulz wrote:
>
>> On Oct 9, 2006, at 6:56 PM, Alain Schremmer wrote:
>>
>>> This is OT.
>>>
>>> I dutifully backup with Retrospect, say every hour, but just now I
>>> needed one of yesterdays versions of one of the over 10000 files
>>> that make up the Magnum Opus. And I couldn't get Retrospect to
>>> cough-up the file even when given the path name. Of course, I know
>>> a Retrospect "expert" who will get me the file but I am fed up.
>>>
>>> I just spent over an hour googling for backup software (over
>>> FireWire or Ethernet) to an external hard drive and, most
>>> important, one that is idiot-proof.
>>>
>>> SuperDuper ($27.95) ,  Data Backup ($49),  Intego ($70) all appear
>>> reasonable but of course they each claim to be the best. The only
>>> Open Source I found was on the terminal so that ruled it out.
>>>
>>> I would very much appreciate any suggestion.
>>>
>>> Regards
>>> --schremmer
>>
>> Howdy,
>>
>> I used to use retrospect and got fed up with its terrible
>> interface. I now use SuperDuper but I'm not at all sure it will do
>> what you want. It will maintain a bootable image of your hard drive
>> but there is no way to retrieve old versions of files.
>>
>> It really sounds like you need some sort of version control system.
>> CVS is the traditional one and SVN a more modern system. Both are a
>> bit of a pain to set up and will need Terminal work before you can
>> use a GUI front end. For CVS I've been using CVL and for SVN I've
>> been using svnX as the front ends.
>>
>> Once SVN and/or CVS is set up, using SuperDuper to make the
>> bootable backup is very nice.
>
>
> To say that setting up a version control system is "a bit of a pain"
> is an understatement, at least it is for me. :-) If that is what you
> are interested in, a recently announced version control system app
> "for the rest of us" looks interesting. It is called Versomatic and
> more info can be found at:
>
> http://www.acertant.com/web/versomatic/default.htm
>
> I haven't tried it, but I would be interested in hearing from anyone
> who has.


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