IDrive:
Online Backup Review
IDrive is one of the cheaper online backup providers. While they do not offer unlimited data, their smallest package (150GBs) is much larger than most of their competitors base packages. They also offer a pretty full range of features, including the unique ability for drag-and-drop file restoration.
IDrive also offers one of the highest levels of security of the products we have reviewed. With IDrive you can make and set your own encryption key. This makes it so that you and only you can encrypt your data and decode it. IDrive also can backup mobile phones contacts from iPhones, Blackberry’s and Androids.
IDrive: Features and Specifications
- Personal Encryption Key – This is makes for the highest level of security for online backup as only you have the pass code to you information. It is also risky because if you lose or forget your key your data is also lost as IDrive cannot decode it without your key.
- Contact Backup – IDrive offers the ability to backup the contacts from your mobile devices. So not only can you backup your important data but you can also backup your important contacts.
- Continuous Data Protection (CDP) – CDP works by incrementally backing up your data instead of doing it all at once like most providers do. While this can be more taxing on your bandwidth, it allows for real-time backups.
- Search and Restore – Very few backup companies allow for you to search for a particular file to restore. While this sounds simple, it can be incredibly helpful as you won’t have to dig for files.
- Syncing – While file-and-folder syncing is pretty standard, drive syncing isn’t. IDrive allows you to sync an entire drive (granted you have the storage space).
IDrive: Security and Encryption
IDrive offers a very high level of security using SSL for transfers to their servers and 256-bit AES Encryption for your data. You can also upgrade your service and get a key to generate your own pass code for your encryption. IDrive also uses redundancy to backup their drives on RAID-protected devices. IDrive offers excellent security for their low prices.
IDrive: Customer Support
IDrive offers 24/7 email support, phone support as well as online chat support. They also have resources, demos and an FAQ section. It is easy to get a hold of their customer service agents and the service is generally good.
IDrive for all their low price and excellent features also has the most complicated backup platform. The service is cluttered and often has bugs and issues. IDrive’s attempt to offer a very sophisticated system comes with the hitch of a huge learning curve that often can be frustrating. If you have the patience and the savvy to learn how to use their system, the benefits are excellent.
The Verdict
IDrive offers great services, features, security and customer service for very competitive rates yet their online platform is just terrible. It is complicated and buggy and often causes more problems than it fixes. However tech savvy people will find the extra options and features that this service provides to be very beneficial to them.
If IDrive sounds like the right product for you, check out their free 5GB account and see how you like their features and if you are able to handle their user interface.
