Retrospect Inc. has released Retrospect 13, a major new release of the backup software that adds support for integrated cloud backup to Amazon S3, Google Cloud Storage, and other Retrospect-certified cloud storage providers (a full list is available from the Retrospect Web site. Retrospect 13 also includes a new performance-optimized grooming mode for automatically deleting older files and folders that complements the existing grooming mode (now called “storage-optimized grooming”). Where storage-optimized grooming reclaims as much space as possible, performance-optimized grooming speeds things up by removing only outdated backup information that it can delete quickly.

Retrospect 13 improves the speed of its catalog rebuild process, as well as backup and restore (up to 20 percent faster). It also adds support for simultaneous access to different sets on the same volume, enables you to move media sets to another location, adds a log message for live restores on OS X 10.11 El Capitan (required by System Integrity Protection), and fixes numerous issues. Retrospect 13 Desktop for Mac is priced at $119, and older versions can be upgraded for $69. It can also be purchased in an Annual Support and Maintenance (ASM) package for $249 ($179 upgrade), which includes one year of unlimited email and phone support plus free upgrades. ($119 new, $69 upgrade, 181 MB, release notes, 10.6.8+)