Kadena PocketCache+ 'Snapshot Backup' Review

And so Kadena Systems released PocketCache+, a backup tool for the rest of us. Able to run directly from a flash drive or a U3 smart drive (U3 version reviewed), PocketCache+ literally makes backing up data as easy as 1-2-3. Once installed on the flash drive, just specify the folders you want to backup, click backup, then should the need arise, restore the backup.

The application's interface is also simplified, divided into three panes dedicated to displaying the folders specified for backup, the snapshots taken for each selection sorted by date, and an Explorer-like interface to navigate the contents of each snapshot to view what files were present at that point in time. From here, you can also select an individual file within a snapshot and either view it or restore it to disk by right clicking the file.

The snapshots that PocketCache+ takes are actually quasi-incremental backups, backing up only the portions of the the files with different hashes. This is especially handy when working with large groups of files that change infrequently, such as a personal website where only the home page may change but there's no need to backup every image many times over, saving precious disk space. Another feat of the snapshot system is the ability to detect minute changes to a file at the block level, and backup only those blocks instead of the whole file all over again - great for working with databases. To test this, I took an 8MB MS Word file filled with bitmap images and an embedded MP3, then took a snapshot of it. I then proceeded to add a single line of text, "Ride the Lightning," and backed it up again. The second backup took only 87KB as opposed to the 8559KB of the initial snapshot, quite impressive. One can even control the amount of disk space used for snapshots by accessing the PocketCache+ preferences and specifying the amount of disk space to be used for snapshot backups, and optionally disabling the backup of files above a set size limit.

Unfortunately, that's about all the program can do. As a former IT administrator, I can't help but criticize Kadena's lack of backup scheduling. From past experience I have found that several users forget, or simply are too lazy to manually backup their files. For these users a manual backup is just about as good as no backup at all. The only other thing the program needs is the ability to add a comment for manual backups, so I can know more about older backups besides just the date it was taken.