Archiware PresStore 1.5 review

For those weaned on the relative simplicity of backup programs such as Dantz's Retrospect, the first moments spent in the unfamiliar company of Archiware's PresStore come as a bit of a culture shock.

Both programs may share the same purpose, but as PresStore is a server- and Unix-based background application accessed via a standard web browser, early impressions of this powerful media management tool aren't favourable.

The foreboding user interface makes the setup process more convoluted than it should be.

Installing the server program itself isn't too problematic: the only requirement for the host Mac on which it is installed is that a root account - required for administering PresStore - must first be enabled.

PresStore offers three types of media management: data backup, archiving (long-term storage of data) and one-way synchronising, where the contents of a target volume are matched with a specified source directory at defined intervals. Each option is available as a separate paid-for module, so PresStore can be quickly, if not necessarily cheaply, extended to keep up with any expansion to your backup requirements.

Whatever module is chosen, however, a consistently tortuous setup routine awaits. Before they can be pressed into action, backup devices and client machines must be configured as resources using PresStore's administration tool. While a rudimentary wizard automatically helps you set up tape drives, if you're using other backup media, you must manually enter its settings, including its strict Unix file path - there's no drag-and-drop simplicity here.

At least PresStore works with a wide range of media, including most tape formats and optical drives, with Blu-ray support, and even some multi-disc CD and DVD changers. It can also copy to hard disk, although you must first designate an area on the hard drive to hold the PresStore disc volumes.

Each resource must then be labelled so it can be uniquely identified and grouped into pools, which allows PresStore to treat multiple backup devices as if they were a single unit. This technique effectively offers unlimited data storage, as fresh resources can be added to pools as you need them. Distributing the data storage hardware may be counter-productive if you're archiving material, and it obviously increases the risk of partial backup failure, but it's a good option for standard backup, particularly as you can channel the backup data stream over several drives in parallel, which results in much faster read and write speeds.

PresStore offers a respectable level of backup and archive customisation. You can set full or incremental backups according to separate daily and monthly schedules, so you can, for example, back up incrementally through the week and perform a full backup at the weekend.

You can also create a filter resource that lets you include or exclude files matching specified expressions, such as the contents of a filename, date of modification or creation or size. There's no direct option to sort by file type, though.

Once a backup or archive routine is established, things become much easier: all backup plan settings are stored in PresStore's Archive and Backup management area as individual, named resources, so can easily be reused.

It's at this point that the program's Unix heritage and the use of the browser as an admin tool come into their own. PresStore works entirely in the background and any client machine on a local or wide area network can manage or access backup files as long as they have been granted suitable permissions on the server. We couldn't get PresStore to work with Safari or OmniWeb - the developer blames a lack of full support for CSS styles - so to use PresStore you will need to dust off a copy of Internet Explorer or use a Mozilla-based browser such as Firefox.