2014 News Releases / Coverage

You wouldn't think privacy and security were platform-specific, but data released by cloud storage service iDrive today seems to say that iPhone and Android users differ in this way as well as many others. iDrive took a look at the volume of photos and videos backed up on each platform, and how many users elected to use private key encryption for better data protection. While Android has far greater market share than iOS as a mobile platform, iDrive used a total of 20,000 users from each platform to keep the comparison on an even playing field.

Hot on the heels of Google Drive's massive storage price cuts, iDrive has announced competitive pricing for its online backup and syncing service. For roughly the same price as Google Drive, you get double the storage space, split between your backup sets and synced files. And it's half off today.

The online backup service IDrive today announced that it is going beyond only backing up your data and is adding a sync feature to its lineup that will automatically keep files on different machines up to date.

The company says this essentially doubles the online storage space available on IDrive, as every paying user now gets as much sync space as backup space with their accounts. Plans with 300GB of backup space and 300GB of syncing space, for example, start at $49.50 per year. Until now, these plans only included the storage space for backup. Backing up a terabyte of data (with an additional terabyte of syncing space) will cost $149.50 per year. New users who sign up now can get IDrive’s terabyte plan for just $1 for the first year.

Uploading hundreds of gigabytes of data can be a slow and tedious process. That’s why cloud backup provider IDrive launched a new service Thursday that replaces that upload with the postman. IDrive’s new IDrive Safe offering offers small to medium businesses a way to back up their data on one of the company’s hard drives, then have it shipped to a managed storage location, and get it sent back if there ever is a need to restore the entire backup.

IDrives staff also makes these drives available online on request, but the data isn’t accessible 24/7. IDrive’s Business Development Coordinator Shane Bingham told me during an interview at CES in Las Vegas this week that the offering was more about offsite backups than about cloud storage, and he suggested that this would be a good solution for businesses that still have a lot of local data, but want some peace of mind with an extra offsite copy.

Cloud storage and data backup service IDrive today announced the launch of a new long-term archival service that allows users to ship data to the company on physical drives.

IDrive Safe, as the company calls this feature, allows users to choose between plans to allow a single backup with up to 1TB of storage ($99.50/year), annual backups ($199.50/year) or monthly shipments ($999.50/year for up to 13TB of stored data per year). Just like with IDrive’s regular hard disk-based backups, the company ships the 1TB drives to customers who then only have to plug them in and start the backup process. Data on the drive is optionally encrypted using 256-bit AES encryption.

LOS ANGELES, Jan. 9, 2014 /PRNewswire/ -- IDrive Inc., a leader in cloud storage and data backup, announced IDrive Safe, a new long-term archival service giving users options for how frequently they add data to their storage by shipping physical drives.

"We wanted to give users more control over their archived data," says Raghu Kulkarni, CEO of IDrive. "IDrive Safe provides a secure cloud service, which keeps data protected offsite in our data centers. The various plan options allow users to decide how often they add data to their archives depending on their specific archival needs. The goal is to make sure data is securely backed up and stored regularly to keep archives up-to-date throughout the year for one flat fee."

IDrive Safe offers three different plans, helping to personalize the archival experience. Consumers and businesses alike can utilize the service to archive data that is accessed or updated infrequently. Drives are shipped to users - frequency depending on the plan - data is then uploaded to the drive and sent back for archival. The consistency of shipments encourages routine backup practice, removing user irregularity and establishing confidence that data is always fully protected. Using physical drives also reduces upload time, as physical connections are faster and avoids Internet bandwidth issues. Data is stored offsite in secure data centers and data can be made available online within 24 hours of a user's request. Users are also given the option to utilize private key encryption to enhance the security of their archives.