Retrospect is a family of backup software

Backup software

Backup software are computer programs used to perform backup; they create supplementary exact copies of files, databases or entire computers. These programs may later use the supplementary copies to restore the original contents in the event of data loss....

 applications for the Mac OS

Mac OS

Mac OS is a series of graphical user interface-based operating systems developed by Apple Inc. for their Macintosh line of computer systems. The Macintosh user experience is credited with popularizing the graphical user interface...

, Mac OS X

Mac OS X

Mac OS X is a series of Unix-based operating systems and graphical user interfaces developed, marketed, and sold by Apple Inc. Since 2002, has been included with all new Macintosh computer systems...

, and Microsoft Windows

Microsoft Windows

Microsoft Windows is a series of operating systems produced by Microsoft.Microsoft introduced an operating environment named Windows on November 20, 1985 as an add-on to MS-DOS in response to the growing interest in graphical user interfaces . Microsoft Windows came to dominate the world's personal...

 operating system

Operating system

An operating system is a set of programs that manage computer hardware resources and provide common services for application software. The operating system is the most important type of system software in a computer system...

s. Its maker Dantz Development Corporation was acquired by EMC Corporation

EMC Corporation

EMC Corporation , a Financial Times Global 500, Fortune 500 and S&P 500 company, develops, delivers and supports information infrastructure and virtual infrastructure hardware, software, and services. EMC is headquartered in Hopkinton, Massachusetts, USA.Former Intel executive Richard Egan and his...

 in 2004. In May 2010 Retrospect was sold to Roxio

Roxio

Roxio is a division and brand of Sonic Solutions . Roxio branded products are sold online, through over 15,000 retail outlets, to organizations through volume license agreements and pre-loaded onto OEM PC's and devices...

/Sonic Solutions

Sonic Solutions

Sonic Solutions, acquired by Rovi Corporation in 2010, was a computer software company headquartered in Novato, California. In addition to having a number of offices in the U.S., the company also maintained offices in Europe and Asia.-History:...

. In 2011, development of Retrospect was turned over to privately-held company operating under the name Retrospect, Inc. The first version from this company, Retrospect 9, was released on November 2, 2011.

The most common variants are:

• Retrospect Express HD, supports backup to local and remote hard drives
• Retrospect Express, adds support for removable media,
• Retrospect, adds tape drives and network backup support. In the network backup scenario a backup host pulls data from multiple networked workstations.

Retrospect is both available for retail sale, and is often bundled with an external hard drive (though often the limited Retrospect Express version).

Retrospect Express was the successor to Dantz's DiskFit Direct backup product, which came bundled with Iomega

Iomega

Iomega is an American producer of consumer external, portable and networking storage hardware. Established in the 1980s, Iomega has sold more than 410 million digital storage drives and disks. On April 8, 2008, EMC Corporation announced its plans to acquire Iomega for a consideration of US $213M...

's Zip 100 drive.

Retrospect was originally developed for the Macintosh and provided network backup support over Appletalk networks.

Retrospect has backup clients for Windows, Macintosh, Linux, Solaris, and NetWare.