Overview
During previous reviews, iDrive has stood somewhere between Carbonite and Mozy, offering a bit of both worlds, but Carbonite and Mozy have improved a lot in terms of features and offers. Mozy is now more accessible than ever, while Carbonite offers more features. They seem to have kept up with the increased pace of online backup providers, which is what all providers need to do to keep up with or, ideally, get ahead of the game. So, is iDrive up to the challenge?
Let’s have a look at the main highlights of iDrive. Functionality is quite smooth, it is user friendly, and offers very useful bandwidth throttle and bandwidth test tools. These are definite improvements which will give its competitors a hard time.
On installing iDrive, auto selection chooses potential files for backup (usually the documents and pictures). Managing files is easy; just right-click the file, and you can add or delete it in the backup. However, there is a drawback in file management – icon labeling is not available, so you can’t know immediately which files are secured, and which are not.
Features
iDrive offers many features that small businesses, and media personnel, too, will love; for instance, you can send your Mapped Network Drives to backup. The backup process itself can be scheduled by the client, or through a web-based console.
Besides the easy backup, there are also some valuable versioning options. The iDrive Explorer tool is a useful versioning option, and is offered for free download, something that will be much appreciated by its users. With it, you can restore previous version files from the timeline; this is a really great additional feature.
Drawbacks
Unlike Carbonite, iDrive’s real-time backup is not particularly appealing. Instead of being continuous, backup is carried out every ten minutes; not only that, the continuous backup is for 50MB files only. The whole experience of continuous backup is pretty lame. We tested the feature, and were disappointed by its performance. While some files were sent for backup which, after all, is what you want the service to do, many image files were left behind. After waiting for some time, to give it a chance to complete the task, we had to send them to the backup folder manually. This was a real test of reliability on which, sadly, it failed to deliver.
The syncing feature, also, is not that remarkable. Instead of syncing computers, it syncs folders. The disadvantage of this is that, if you sync the desktop folder with the backup, then subsequently delete something, you can lose data.
Interface and Data Protection
iDrive offers an exclusive interface, and is packed with superb features. Data security is satisfactory; you can transfer data that is protected with 128-bit SSL encryption, whereas the stored date is protected with 256-bit AES encryption. If you still have doubts about security with iDrive, you can always avail yourself of custom security keys.
With the Basic iDrive and iDrive Pro accounts, you can access your data with one computer only. However, with the 5 PC Family Pack, you can access your data with multiple computers; this is the perfect fit for the office environment.
Last Word
Carbonite might have some edge over iDrive due to its reliable and continuous backup, but iDrive’s power feature pack is certainly giving Mozy a hard time. With reliable security features, and user-friendly interface, iDrive most definitely has something for you.
Visit iDrive here
