Retrospect vs Backup 2

[mala]

Hi,

I'm about to schedule some backup routines on my home Mac as it's now crammed with stuff more or less essential to my life.
Since I'm a .Mac member I've got Backup installed but someone recommended Retrospect Desktop instead. How do the two compare? As I already have Backup 2, whould Retrospect be worth the money?

TIA

/Mala

[albloom]

I don't have Backup, but Jim Dalrymple gave it a nice review:

Click Here

My only concern is that it is intertwined with a .Mac account, something
that might not be forever.

I've used Retrospect since dirt, and it is certainly the gold standard for
my environment -- backing up three computers with 6 HD volumes at
one fell swonk over the home ethernetlet, but it can be a bit overmuch
for a single computer.

I would suggest a multi-generation backup strategy. I back up to external
FW HDs, one for each "generation." The most current backup is by my
Mac. Its father (second most recent) and grandfather (third most recent)
are off site. Prevents total loss if one device goes dixie.

[wicky]

My only concern is that it is intertwined with a .Mac account, something that might not be forever.

The way I understand it, the .Mac Backup saves it's backup volumes in an uncompressed format (as they appear on your HD). This means that it is not essential to use the Backup App to get access to your backed up data.

Retrospect is a more professional tool (reflected in it's price). If you are backing up data at home from a single system then Backup is perfectly adequate (and very Mac). However, if you are backing up lots of data from several volumes on several different machines, then Retrospect is probably worth the extra money.

[mala]

Yes, I've now tried the both and for my needs Backup seems to be the choice.

Thanks

/Mala