Review: Idrive Online Backup

The following post is a sponsored review of Idrive Online Backup, a solution that I have been using for several years now to keep my data safe.

Let me jump directly into the features of Idrive:

  1. Automatic selection of documents, pictures and videos when you first install it
  2. Continuous data protection of modified files, compressed and secured via 128-bit SSL transfer and 256-bit AES encryption on storage
  3. All files are versioned and never deleted unless you choose to do so
  4. Quick search and restore features to get back those files you’ve lost
  5. Data retrieval from any computer in any location in the world, even without the software installed
  6. Timeline restore to get your files back from a specific point in time

Idrive plans begin at a generous 5GB completely for free. But, if you want more data you can upgrade for as little as $4.95/mo

Starting off is extremely easy, simply grab the account, download the software and you’re good to go.

IDrive_Login

Hit connect and you’re ready to begin the backup process.

IDrive_Classic

If you think you’re stuck with that list, don’t worry. You have complete freedom to choose whichever folders you want. I have my entire development portfolio including my WordPress plugins backed up along with all important documents that are neatly filed in “My Documents” folder.

So, which backup software are you using. Have you used this one? What has your experience been so far?

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3 Comments

  1. iDrive is okay but I’ve been using my AmazonS3 account and syncing up my folders using the free Firefox plugin. Not as many features, but it does what I need it to do.

  2. There seems to be a serious data speed limitation that makes the service way too slow to really be useful. IDrive has \”bandwitdh throttling\” as part of auto-pause so it slows down when the computer is in use. But even with this disabled, the upload and download speeds are way too low.

    I’m using Verizon FIOS with 25Mb/sec down and 5Mb/sec up. IDrive, however, clamps the download to exactly 1800.0Mb/sec and upload to 1200.0Mb/sec accordint to their supplied speed test. This means to upload 1GB it takes two hours. Every time I run their speed test, I get these two numbers exactly, with no variation. The slowdown can’t be attributed to periodic heavy Internet traffic, because in that case, the numbers would vary.

    If you get a 50GB account, it will take 100 hours to fill it. That is 4 days of constant upload. Even if you only upload 12GB, it will take a full day. But if they could take the full 5Mb/sec FIOS upload, it would only take 6 hours, which could be accommodated over night.

    As it is, it appears they will only let you use 1/10 of the total download and 1/4 of the total upload bandwidth the FIOS can provide.

    Are they limiting bandwidth to allow more concurrent users? If so, that means all the current users are being forced to run very slowly, and more infrastructure is needed.

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