iDrive - Online Cloud Backup Done Right
Ok I’ve been testing online cloud backup solutions for the past few months and they either fall into two camps.
1. Difficult to use
or
2. Expensive.
I was becoming increasingly frustrated with all that was out there until I stumbled upon iDrive.com. iDrive.com simply does online backup right. Their system is a breeze to use and is available for both Mac and Windows.
iDrive.com also allow you to backup multiple computers under one account, something almost all of the competitors either charge for or don’t even offer and their pricing is totally affordable. A 2gb account is free allowing you to backup, up to 2gigabytes of information, once you exceed that limitation they have a host of other plans, but the middle of the road package which is perfect for most small business and home users gives you 150 gigabytes of storage for $49.95 per year or $4.95 per month. That is a small price to pay for peace of mind in my book.
Setup and Configuration is drop dead simple.
1. Download the iDrive application
2. Install iDrive
3. Specify folders and files to backup
4. Specify Backup Times
5.DONE iDrive takes it from there
Every night at 9pm iDrive backs up my client files to my account onto the iDrive.com servers. The first time you run iDrive it does a complete backup which takes some time depending on how much data you are moving up after that it just does incremental backups based upon new or edited files and should go fairly quickly.
Another nice feature of iDrive is their web accessibility called iDrive Web Access. Simply login to your account on the iDrive website and you now have access to all your backed up files from anywhere in the world, so the next time your traveling and forgot that super important file, if it’s backed up you have instant access to it. How cool is that.
I could continue to go on and on about how cool iDrive is but I say check out the little demo below or head over to iDrive.com and get the full scoop. If you decide to sign-up for an account please do me a favor and use our affiliate banner link or click on the demo below so we get credit. It’s very rare when we stand behind a product enough to promote it so you can rest assured that iDisk is a keeper.
If you have recommendations for other cloud backup solutions please let us know in the comments we’d love to hear them and even test them out for future reviews.
Jodi Friedman:
I have been looking for a backup solution for a while - and none seem to do what I want.
I am looking for something that can back up photos, documents and all my photoshop files. Plus I would like a way to back up thunderbird emails. Emails are my lifeline and if my computer crashed I would be LOST without them.
Do you know if this program can back them up?
Also - another issue I am curious about is that I want to be able to have certain stuff off my harddrive but backed up - basically some archive stuff from my external HD. Can this program do that too?
Thanks Cris.
Jodi
Posted on May 23rd, 2009 at 2:35 pm
Cris Mitchell:
Hey Jodi,
iDrive is a perfect solution for what you are tying to accomplish, it even backs up RAW camera files which many of the others don’t.
The software is drop dead simple you just select the files/folders on your computer you want to have iDrive backup, schedule a time for your backups and your done.
THe cool thing if your a mac user not sure if they have this for the PC version is a little widget that actually allows you to mount your iDrive onto your desktop like another external HD. You can then drag and drop files over to your backup drive as well.
IT ROCKS
You get 2 GB for free might as well give it a shot, nothing to loose except your data hahaha. I should be their marketing person.
Posted on May 23rd, 2009 at 6:04 pm
Jodi Friedman:
I have a PC.
What about backing up emails?
Posted on May 23rd, 2009 at 6:17 pm
Cris Mitchell:
not terribly familiar with the windows side of things but one would imaging that you would just select your email database for outlook or whatever program you use and it will get backed up nightly as well.
Cris…
Posted on May 23rd, 2009 at 6:24 pm