Dantz Retrospect Professional 6.0

Features of Dantz Retrospect Professional 6.0

Unlike some backup apps that only copy files, Retrospect also takes a "snapshot" of your entire system every time it runs a backup. Like Roxio's GoBack, Retrospect archives e-mail, shortcuts, cookies, and various other personalized items. This allows you to roll back your system to its original working state rather than simply reload data and programs should the installation of new software prove to be buggy.

However, Retrospect is no speed demon, a fact Dantz freely admits. Using default settings, for example, Retrospect took an hour to run a 563MB backup job, while WinBackup did the same task in about 15 minutes. Why so slow? One reason is Retrospect's verification routine, which does a byte-for-byte comparison of the archive and the hard disk. This prevents corrupted data from being transferred but doubles the time of the backup, according to Dantz. You can, however, disable verification to save time. Some backup utilities, including WinBackup, offer verification but turn it off by default. We'd prefer it to default to On.



Like WinBackup, Retrospect also offers optional compression, which saves disc space by cutting the archive file size by 25 to 40 percent. Unlike verification, however, compression isn't activated by default and does slow your backups somewhat.

Retrospect supports a wide variety of DVD and CD writers, as well as Zip, floppy, and tape drives, the latter of which are still popular in small businesses. The program comes ready for small LANs and can archive data from two additional Windows or Macintosh clients. Another plus is its boot-by-CD feature, which lets you create a CD restore disc that guides you through a system restore.