Retrospect Backup 16
Virtualisation support is lacking, but it’s a good choice for protecting physical servers and workstations
PRICE Multi-Server with 1yr support, £2,099 exc VAT from retrospect. com
Retrospect Backup comes with a flexible licensing scheme: you can start with the base Single Server package – which costs £599 and backs up one Windows server, plus five desktops – and scale right up to the Multi-Server version on review, which supports unlimited Windows, Mac and Linux servers and desktops.
Optional add-ons bring support for Microsoft Exchange, SQL Server and IMAP email accounts, plus features included in the Multi-Server Premium version such as open-file backup and restoration of Windows system images to dissimilar hardware.
If you have used Retrospect Backup before, the main console will be very familiar as it hasn’t seen any design changes for over a decade, but it still works perfectly well.
Your first task is to create backup sets, which define destinations: supported cloud services include Dropbox, Amazon S3 and Google Cloud Storage, and you can also use local drives, tapes, DVD writers and network shares. The new storage groups feature overcomes an old problem with multiple write
operations at once, allowing you to set up multiple disk vaults as destinations and run jobs in parallel.
Next, to create a backup job, you select sources – such as local disks or systems running the Restrospect client utility – then pick volumes or files, choose a backup set and apply a schedule. By default, jobs start with a full backup followed by incrementals, which saves a bit of configuration.
One thing that’s important to note is that Retrospect Backup doesn’t handle agentless backups on VMware and Hyper-V. If you want to protect your VMs, you’ll have to install the client on each one and treat it as a
“The console guides you through creating a bootable flash drive or ISO, which can be used to restore a sick system
physical system. Alternatively, you can invest in the separate Retrospect Virtual package, but this doesn’t integrate with the Backup software. Granular restoration for Exchange 2016 and 2019 hosts isn’t on offer, either – only releases up to 2013 are supported, which is disappointing in this day and age.
Recovery operations are wizard-driven. You’re prompted to choose a backup source, select volumes, folders, files, databases or mailboxes and decide where to restore them to. For disaster recovery, the console guides you through creating a bootable flash drive or ISO and associating it with a backup set, after which it can be used to restore a sick system.
Management is another strength. Alongside the main dashboard utility, Retrospect offers an iOS app for monitoring selected backup servers, plus a cloud portal for keeping an eye on multiple hosts. Real-time host monitoring is free, while support for multiple organisations and facilities to remotely deploy backup jobs is an optional extra, with prices starting at £119 for one host.
Retrospect Backup’s limited support for virtualised environments is a disappointment, but if you want an easily managed backup solution for protecting physical servers and desktops, it’s a worthy contender at a good price.
REQUIREMENTS Backup host: Windows Server 2008 upwards