Retrospect to DVD--what write speed to you get?

On or about 8/16/06 10:17 AM, thus spake "Craig.Treleaven"
<craig.treleavennovopharm.com>:

> I want to get back in the routine of backing up. Last night I got Retrospect
> Express installed in my Intel Mini and kicked it off. After an hour, it was
> averaging 34 MB/min and so the backup of ~27 GB was going to take 13.5 hours.
> Not surprisingly, the idea of feeding one DVD into the machine every 2 hours,
> all night long, didn't appeal to me.
>
> What kind of write speed should I be expecting? My trusty old beige G3 used to
> write to CD-R at over 100 MB/min. Surely I can do better than that?
>
> I noticed two options in R'Express but didn't have a chance to try them. I see
> that R'Express was writing at the "Default" speed and that there is a "Faster"
> option. Is this the big trick? Also, I had (software) Compression on. Is this
> particularly crippled on Intel Macs?

DVD writing in Restrospect uses proprietary drivers and structure, so it's
not at all like copying to DVD using the Finder. It has always been famously
slow. In answer to you specific questions, I'd say "(e) all of the above" -
turn off compression, turn off verification, turn on Faster. But above all,
don't sweat the time, since this is never going to happen again, subsequent
backups being incremental and so requiring much less time. Or just get a big
external hard drive and back up to that - they are so cheap these days (and
even if it takes hours, you don't have to be in attendance). m.

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At 10:17 08/16/06 -0700, Craig.Treleaven wrote:
>it was averaging 34 MB/min

Something's wrong. I back up much faster to DVD -- across the LAN. Now in
my case the backup server is Windows and the Mac is the client, but unless
someone knows some reason that the Mac hardware or software radically
cripples DVD drives, it should get something close to the rated write speed.

Edward
Art works by Melynda Reid: http://paleo.org

On Aug 17, 2006, at 3:06 AM, Edward Reid wrote:

> At 10:17 08/16/06 -0700, Craig.Treleaven wrote:
>> it was averaging 34 MB/min
>
> Something's wrong. I back up much faster to DVD -- across the LAN.
> Now in
> my case the backup server is Windows and the Mac is the client, but
> unless
> someone knows some reason that the Mac hardware or software radically
> cripples DVD drives, it should get something close to the rated
> write speed.

I wish I could back up across the LAN, but Retrospect doesn't like
something about my LAN--it can't get by the first DVD in a set
without producing silly errors about data transmission problems. So
I for the Mini I used the Retrospect Express that came with a drive I
added to the Mini, until I applied Apple's Superdrive update to the
Mini, at which point Retrospect Express declared the drive
"unsupported". Grr.

I'm currently just doing SuperDuper copies, alternating on two
different drive boxes. One of these days I'll either try the LAN
again or use target disk mode to mount the Mini's disk on the machine
with full Retrospect.

   --John

Media makes a difference!

Heavy-duty web searching located a suggestion that DVD+R are better suited to the packet writing strategy used by Retrospect than the DVD-R I was using.

6-7X better, in my case. Write speed lept from 34 MB/min to 250+ MB/min!

Total backup time dropped from an estimated 13-14 hours to under 2 hours. The Compare is still running as I type this, but so far, so good.

BTW, both kinds of discs were rated for 8X speed; my burners max.

Craig

On 2006-08-19, at 08:10, Craig.Treleaven wrote:

> Heavy-duty web searching located a suggestion that DVD+R are better
> suited to the packet writing strategy used by Retrospect than the
> DVD-R I was using.

Oh, right. Glad you found the problem.

EMC recommend DVD+R in their article # 5245:

<http://kb.dantz.com/display/2n/articleDirect/index.asp?
aid=5245&r=0.547619>


--
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On 19/08/2006, at 8:10 AM, Craig.Treleaven wrote:

> Media makes a difference!
>
> Heavy-duty web searching located a suggestion that DVD+R are better
> suited to the packet writing strategy used by Retrospect than the
> DVD-R I was using.

        I knew this was the case with the Windows version, but I thought OS
X preferred DVD-R media, or is this just a limitation of the iApps
that Retrospect can over come?

Jason

-------------------------------------
Jason Campbell
Technician
Psychology Department
University of Otago

Ph (03) 479 7668

--On August 20, 2006 1:53:29 PM -0700 Jason Campbell
<jasonpsy.otago.ac.nz> wrote:

> On 19/08/2006, at 8:10 AM, Craig.Treleaven wrote:
>
>> Heavy-duty web searching located a suggestion that DVD+R are better
>> suited to the packet writing strategy used by Retrospect than the
>> DVD-R I was using.
>
> I knew this was the case with the Windows version, but I thought OS
> X preferred DVD-R media, or is this just a limitation of the iApps
> that Retrospect can over come?

Huh? I don't have retrospect and have been using DVD+R's on the built-in
DVD writer since I got my Mac Mini right after they came out. I've been
using a 3rd party DVD burner to do Dual Layer +R discs since iLife '06 came
out.

Jason Campbell wrote:
> On 19/08/2006, at 8:10 AM, Craig.Treleaven wrote:
>
>> Media makes a difference!
>>
>> Heavy-duty web searching located a suggestion that DVD+R are better
>> suited to the packet writing strategy used by Retrospect than the
>> DVD-R I was using.

DVD-R was the path taken by Apple when burnable DVDs first came out. Now
+R and -R are both supported on all (I think) current machines and have
been for a while.