Retrospect 9.0 for Mac Read Me

This document contains important information about Retrospect 9 for Mac. Please read it carefully.

The Retrospect website is regularly updated with the most recent support information for Retrospect and related products, including the following:

New in Retrospect 9.0

This release offers improved stability and performance over version 8 and introduces several new capabilities, including an all-new Retrospect Client for Intel Macs that adds on-demand backup and restore, the ability to utilize WebDAV cloud storage, and support for Mac OS X Lion.

All-new Retrospect Client for Intel Macs

64-bit System Preference pane

On-demand backup and restore

Animated, interactive menu bar icon

Growl notification of backup operations

Easier marking of files, folders, and volumes as private

Network link encryption now employs the strong AES-256 standard

Support for S.M.A.R.T. hard drive error reporting

Improved performance in several areas, including the ability to run up to 16 simultaneous executions (configuration permitting)

Support for WebDAV cloud storage

Management control of new client features and additional Wake-on-LAN options

New upgrade process no longer requires two downloads to complete

Ability to view only those files that were copied during a backup

Improved network share support

Improved use of search and scope buttons, including the ability to search for sources by assigned tag

Support for Mac OS X Lion

Over 250 bug fixes, including improvements to the media request process, a config file backup process that provides better protection against corruption, and the elimination of certain spurious errors

For information on the new capabilities of Retrospect 9, see the

Tips and late-breaking information

The Retrospect 9 Client software can provide information on backup operations to users using Growl notifications. To learn about or download Growl, visit

The Mac OS X Lion installation process modifies a Mac’s startup disk to add an invisible 640 MB "Recovery HD" partition that can be used to start up the Mac in the event of a problem with the primary startup volume. This partition is not visible in Retrospect or Disk Utility.

Retrospect users should be aware of the following information regarding the Recovery HD partition:

The creation of this partition changes the size of the startup volume, so Retrospect may show the startup volume twice in the Sources view. If this happens, remove the original volume from the Sources list and redefine any favorite folders.

If the disk containing the Recovery HD partition is repartitioned and erased with an application like Disk Utility, or if a new hard drive is installed, the Recovery HD partition will no longer be present. Running the Lion installer on this disk will recreate the Recovery HD partition.

Retrospect 9 can restore from Backup Sets created by Retrospect 6.x for Mac (except those of type Internet). However, it is not possible to add more data to these Backup Sets using version 9; Retrospect 9 treats version 6.x Backup Sets as read-only.

Before it’s possible to search or restore from a 6.x Backup Set using Retrospect 9, a Retrospect 9 Catalog must first be created. To create a version 9 Catalog from the 6.x media, go to the Media Sets view in Retrospect 9, click on the Rebuild button in the toolbar, add the Backup Set members (like "1-Backup Set A" and "2-Backup Set A") that contain the backup data, click Next, and then click Rebuild. You will need to tell Retrospect where to save the new Catalog. Retrospect will then scan over the backup media and generate a new Catalog. This will take some time. Once this process completes, you will be able to restore from that Backup Set.

To rebuild a Catalog from an Optical Disc Backup Set, it is first necessary to activate optical device support. The

Some VXA-320 tape drives respond to a different command length than other VXA-320 drives. Unfortunately, Retrospect cannot resolve this difference without user intervention. If your VXA-320 drive exhibits communication problems with Retrospect 9, such as "incorrect scsiServiceResponse" messages displaying in the Mac OS X system log (viewable with the Console application in /Applications/Utilities/), then you will need to edit the retro.ini settings file to correct the problem, as outlined in the

When restoring a Windows client computer that is booted from the optional Retrospect Emergency Recovery CD for Windows, drive letters might change. Pay special attention to which volume(s) you are restoring.

The following is a list of issues present in Retrospect 9.

. To remove the Retrospect and Retrospect Client System Preference panes from disks encrypted with Lion’s FileVault whole disk encryption feature activated, right-click (or Control-click) on them in System Preferences and select the Remove option.

created on PowerPC-based Macs running Retrospect 8 cannot be read by Intel-based Macs and vice versa. We recommend that users requiring data encryption switch to the more advanced AES standard.

. We recommend running Mac OS X 10.6 "Snow Leopard" or later on 64-bit-capable Intel Macs.

Tape library magazine slot assignment changes don’t update* until the Retrospect console is quit and restarted.

Retrospect 9 system requirements

The Retrospect console and engine can be installed on separate Macs.

Intel processor

Mac OS X 10.5.8 or later

At least 1 GB RAM

50 MB hard disk space

Storage for backups

Intel Core Duo or better processor

Mac OS X 10.6.8 or later

At least 2 GB RAM

10-15 GB of temp hard disk space for each concurrent activity (backup, restore, etc.)

Intel processor

Mac OS X or Mac OS X Server 10.5.8 or later, including Lion

RAM that meets Apple’s guidelines for each OS

Backing up Mac OS X Server clients requires Retrospect Multi Server or Retrospect Single Server with available Server Client Licenses.

PowerPC G3, G4, or G5

Mac OS X or Mac OS X Server 10.3.9, 10.4.11, or 10.5.8 or later

RAM that meets Apple’s guidelines for each OS

Backing up Mac OS X Server clients requires Retrospect Multi Server or Retrospect Single Server with available Server Client Licenses.

Pentium processor or later

Windows 2000, XP, Vista, or 7; Windows 2000 Server, Windows Server 2003 or 2008

RAM that meets Microsoft’s guidelines for each OS

Backing up Windows Server clients requires Retrospect Multi Server or Retrospect Single Server with available Server Client Licenses.

x86-based system running Red Hat Linux, Red Hat Enterprise Linux, SUSE Linux Desktop, SUSE Linux Professional, SUSE Linux Standard Server, or SUSE Enterprise Server operating system.  

glibc version 2 or later

In order to use the graphical user interface (GUI) to change options and preferences, Java version 1.2 or later is also required.

Retrospect supports a wide variety of storage devices as the destination for backups, including hard drives (both direct- and network-attached), tape drives and libraries (connected via FireWire, SCSI, iSCSI, Fibre Channel), and removable disk drives. See the

Upgrading from Retrospect 6.1

The Retrospect 9 installation process does not overwrite or remove existing Retrospect 6.1 (or earlier) installations. It is recommended that you continue to maintain your existing Retrospect installation until you are comfortable with Retrospect 9.

To keep your existing Retrospect 6.1 (or earlier) installation and prevent that version’s scripts from automatically running, take the following steps:

For each backup, duplicate, and restore script with a schedule, edit the script’s schedule and check the box to "Skip scheduled executions". Enter a date that is several years in the future.

For each Backup Server script, edit its schedule and set the schedule to never active.

Should you instead wish to remove your previous installation of Retrospect, locate the disk image containing the installer for your current Retrospect installation (or download it from the Archives section of the Retrospect website) and follow these steps:

Double-click the Install Retrospect icon and provide your password and agreement to the license.

Choose Uninstall from the Easy Install pop-up menu.

Click the Uninstall button and follow the on-screen instructions.

Uninstalling Retrospect 9

To remove Retrospect 9, follow the steps outlined below.

The Uninstaller preserves Config files (which contain the database of logged-in clients, scripts and schedules, and general Retrospect engine preferences), the Retrospect console’s preferences, and all Media Set Catalog files (which keep track of what files are backed up to each Media Set). If you instead want to

Open the Retrospect application folder and double-click the Uninstall Retrospect icon to run the uninstaller.

Last Update: March 1, 2012