IDrive Review
Best Cloud Storage and Online Backup Services
IDrive is a comprehensive cloud storage and online backup service with multiple plans and features geared toward small businesses. This service is primarily a cloud backup solution that allows you to keep your data secure and recoverable in the face of an emergency. IDrive is a versatile system that gives you multiple ways to back up, store and recover data, allowing you to adapt to any situation and keep your business running.
Pricing and Plans
IDrive's plans allow you to back up unlimited devices for one annual payment. The Business tier allows unlimited users, whereas many other services charge for multiple users. The Personal plans go from 2TB for $69.50 a year to 5TB for $99.50 a year. The Business tier features plans from 250GB up to 12.5TB. There is no unlimited plan, but customer support conveyed to us that you can add more data to the plan as needed. A free version with 5GB of storage and basic features is also available.
Features
Online backup is easy with IDrive. You'll always know that your data is safe in its cloud, as it syncs your computers on a scheduled or continuous basis. It includes real-time backup, which means it can detect even the smallest changes to your system's files and back them up. The IDrive Snapshot keeps states of your computer or server in storage, allowing you to restore your system to how it was at previous points in time. This type of restoration is especially important if your system is attacked by malware such as ransomware, when you'll need to return your system to a previous version that was not infected with the malware. Storing Snapshots has no impact on your account's storage.
Whether you use a PC, Mac, iOS or Android devices, you can use IDrive to store and back up your files in the cloud. You can access your files from IDrive apps for your mobile devices, and you can share files through these apps. Files sync in real time, so you don't have to worry about data loss. Additionally, you can set up IDrive to sync your files at a specific time.
File sharing through IDrive is as easy as right-clicking and choosing the options to create a link and send via Facebook, Twitter or email. You can also set permissions to allow users accessing the files to only view them or to edit them if you wish.
IDrive offers archiving so that none of your data is lost to carelessness. You must manually delete files or choose IDrive's archive cleanup tool to sync your computer's data to what's on your account. In addition to storing and backing up your photos from your computer, you can back up your Facebook and Instagram photos.
Important business features include the ability to set up a hybrid system for an extra layer of security. Rather than keeping one backup in the cloud, you can also back up to a local device like a backup server so you have more than one option for backup. IDrive Express is also an important feature: In the case of an emergency, IDrive can physically ship you a copy of your data on its media for faster and more secure recovery than you'd get over the internet. IDrive is secured with 256-bit AES encryption and compliant with several security regulations, including HIPAA.
