Retrospect owner, StorCentric, declares Chapter 7 bankruptcy-thoughts for users?

Topic

New Reply

StorCentric, the owner of Retrospect backup software (and Drobo) switched its bankruptcy filing from Chapter 11 to Chapter 7. This means that instead of a reorganization, it’s looking to sell off all of its assets.

I assume that Retrospect isn’t widely used by Ask Woody members. But I have been a user for many years and it is a feature-rich (though not intuitive) product (I also use a disk imaging product). Have any of you that are users thought about what to use to replace it if Retrospect isn’t sold off as a unit and stays afloat? Retrospect has gone through many owners (including Dantz, Sonic, EMC and Rovi since the mid-1980’s) before being acquired by StorCentric, so I’m hoping it will continue to exist.

I’d like a product that has comparable features for me to use to backup my files to my NAS devices.

Phil

Reply | Quote

Replies

I’m sure you can still use Retrospect – it won’t suddenly stop working.

If you want to change you can use any of the products we have mentioned here. All will backup to your NAS.
What specific features do you want?
Free or paid?

cheers, Paul

Reply | Quote

Thanks for your reply, Paul. I realize that Retrospect will continue to work even if the company dissolves. I am just trying to be proactive and identify a potential replacement should that dissolution happen as Retrospect releases periodic updates. My concern is that Win 11 changes (as it matures) may require a Retrospect update to maintain stability or functionality.

My main requirement is centralized management, including backup scheduling and recovery of the PCs on my network. Currently, I run Retrospect on a desktop Win 11 PC and backup that PC and 3 laptops on my network that have Retrospect agents on them. My Retrospect license provides up to 5 agents. Data deduplication and incremental and differential backups are important for me. Retrospect does incremental backups, but the backup sets are prunable.

I’m certainly willing to pay for the functionality (though free is always nice). As centralized backup management is typically an SMB use case rather than an individual home user case, it’s often extremely expensive. I’m currently paying for updates/upgrades and support for my package with the software and 5 remote agents, including bare metal restore to dissimilar hardware. If I move to another product, I’d like to pay less than $150/year.

I’m also using Synology Active Backup for Business (included at no extra cost with my NAS). It provides centralized management, but each backup task is really best for an entire disk rather than a custom list of files. Retrospect is more flexible.

I just started looking at Duplicati, https://www.duplicati.com a free open source product to see if it will meet my desired feature set.

Best,

Phil

Reply | Quote

Well, Duplicati isn’t an answer. Its continuing support and maintenance is evidently in question according to posts on its forum page.

Phil

Reply | Quote

Centralized management makes it harder.
Macrium Reflect will do all that you want but it is not under your price for 5 machines.
MiniTool ShadowMaker business seems to fit.
There are a few open source products as well. BorgBackup is well reviewed here.

cheers, Paul

1 user thanked author for this post.

BiltmoreLaker

Reply | Quote

Thanks Paul,

I had looked at Macrium and did see its price point seems brutally high for an individual.

For now, I’ll keep my fingers crossed and hope that Retrospect pulls through (they’ve been in business for over 30 years, and have, I believe, a huge customer base). So there’s hope they’ll survive.

In the meantime, I’ll take a look at MiniTool Shadow Maker and BorgBusiness. Thanks for pointing me to them!

Best,

Phil

Reply | Quote

I use Macrium Reflect and love it.
But, take a look at Terabyte’s Image for Windows in the Backup Forum.

Reply | Quote

Thanks for your response.

One of my needs, supplied by Retrospect, is centralized management both for PC backups and for restores. Macrium Reflect allows remote backup and restore, but only in its expensive business tier.

Regarding Terabyte’s Image suite, I have been using it for imaging for years in addition to Retrospect for file backups (belt and suspenders  😀). It’s a great rock solid product.

Reply | Quote

I have used Retrospect off and on in one way or another for nearly 30 years.  I hope they can keep going as retrospect instead of being gobbled up by a bigger competitor.  I backup close to 10 (linux and Windows) servers an about 60 clients (Windows 10/11 and Mac OS).  I don’t mind paying for the software since there are a lot of transient computers in my environment.  Just saving the data off one system that was stolen, dropped or puked on after a night of partying is more than enough to justify the cost.  Keeping my fingers crossed.

Reply | Quote