Backup 3.0: Avoid

Jonathan Rentzsch (based on reports from Erik Barzeski and Michael McCracken) on the sorry state of Apple’s Backup, and Mac backup software in general:

This is why Backup 3 is so damaging: its target demographic is exactly the type of people who don’t know—or lack the hardware resources—to test restorations. Backup 3’s high production values can lull even those who should know better into a false sense of security.

I’d be interested to know to know whether the recent Backup 3.0.1 update fixes the problems, but who’d want to risk their data with it now? Also, the Mac-savvy rsync in Tiger should be great for certain kinds of backups, but it’s still unreliable and slow.

The new Retrospect 6.1 doesn’t seem to be much of an improvement, and SuperDuper seems to be a quality product, but it’s currently too basic. So I use Synchronize! Pro X for hard-disk backups with crude versioning (Unfortunately, contrary to my previous report, the alias logging problem is not fixed in 4.1.1.) and DropDMG for archiving to CD/DVD. I’d like a comprehensive backup program, but how likely is that with Dantz’s patent and Apple’s “free” software:

Unfortunately, the harm doesn’t end just in the black eye for Apple’s software quality-control, the valuation of .Mac, or the users who will lose data. Backup 3 also hurts the market for backup software that actually works.