Re: Note from you attached below

Keith,

I don't know alot about Retrospect, but I'll try to address your issues
(let me know if I make a false assumption about Retrospect).

>>1) 2Megs of disk space for ADSM (ouch) and about 120K for Retrospect.

     2 MB is a lot of disk space.  I have an old copy of Retrospect (not
     Remote) and it take up 700K, and its an OLD version.  I'm guessing
     that Retrospect Remote has most of its software on the server machine.
     If your users are using a server, then you can put ADSM out in a
     shared folder, where each user will have their own Preferences file.
     This not only saves disk space on users machines, but makes it
     easier to apply updates.

     If your users don't use a server, then if they are only going to be
     running the scheduler (99% of the time), they can leave ADSM Backup
     on their backup disks until they need to do a restore.

     I will continue to try to reduce the disk space requirement...


>>2) Restrospect is a control panel.  (This alone is a big plus, well at
>>   least to the Mac-Hacks I'm dealing with)  ADSM uses a separate
>>   application. (Scheduler).

     Is it that its not a Control Panel, or that it takes up so much
     memory that is really the problem.  The direction in System 7 is for
     Control Panels to really be small little applications.  However,
     I tend to agree that a Control Panel would be nice...

>>3) Retrospect has a small memory footprint when not active vs. the
>>   apparent 1M of memory lost just to have the Scheduler active and it
>>   apparently stays active all the time.

     As I see it, this is the biggest problem.  The memory requirements
     have to be reduced for an app that is going to hang around.  I am
     working on solving this problem.

     As a workaround (for now) for memory constrained Macs, you could run
     QuicKeys (or something similar) to start the Scheduler in the
     afternoon.  This isn't the best solution, but I'm working on another
     solution...

>>4) ADSM only supports client-polling for Macs  (I don't quite understand
>>   the reasoning behind this) rather than having the server control backup
>>   initiations.  (That's probably just a matter of personal preference
>>   though).

     Is this really a problem?  The server still controls when the backup
     is started.  Its just that the client contacts the server, instead
     of the server contacting the client.  Chance you'll see the
     server initiated someday...

>>5) Not earth-shatteringly important but, it would be really nice to turn
>>   off the Mac when the backup is completed if you want, like Retrospect
>>   does.  It's a garnish type of effect but it really makes it easy
>>   to explain to users, "See you don't have to worry about turning your
>>   Mac off at night, we'll back it up and when we're done, we'll turn
>>   it off for you."  Users seem to get a big kick out of that one. :)

     Your right, this is definitely something we need...keep your eyes
     open...

 I know the memory requirements are a little stiff right now for the
 scheduler.  Maybe some of the above workarounds will work for you.
 If they don't, then hopefully you'll be able to use ADSM on your larger
 Macs, migrating the smaller ones to it when we solve this problem.
 Or you could always upgrade the Macs ;-)

 I am curious as to the number of small Macs you have (4/40, SE's, etc)
 and also how many people are still running 6.0.7.

 Thanks for the feedback...

 Brett Walker
 ADSM Developement