IDrive Review

Hailey By: Hailey | Last updated May 3, 2019

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8.1 / 10

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PROS:

  • Fast
  • Good value for money
  • Free IDrive Express feature (once per year)

CONS:

  • No unlimited data storage option
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SUMMARY:

After many rigorous tests, IDrive proved itself to be the best cloud data backup service on our top ten list. It’s incredibly fast and it’s also one of the products that are very easy to use for users that have never operated a similar app. It offers exclusive features at an affordable price. It recorded above average results in speed testing during the backing up and restoration of files. All the data you entrust IDrive with, is encrypted with military grade protection.

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COMPLETE REVIEW

The two equally amazing parts that make IDrive the top ranked online backup service are the fact that it’s an online data storage site as well as a cloud backup service. The two services are symbiotically connected to give you one storage service for all your needs. Unlike many of the other products in the category, IDrive Pro Personal subscription comes with 1TB of storage for as many devices as you own. IDrive ranked number one on our list, partially because of the very high scores in all our tests and because of the many features it additionally offers. A drive seeding option and a courier recovery feature are all part of the same package.

Value for money  

IDrive Pro Personal comes at a fair price of $69.50 for 1TB and an unlimited number of connected devices. Priced reasonably at just under $70, IDrive often has different kinds of promotional offers where you can get any of their services much cheaper. Subscribing for a period longer than the standard one year contract, lowers the price even further.

For a larger family that has approximately five computers, the 1TB storage option got an A- mark because it costs about $12/year, per PC. For a smaller family counting three PCs, IDrive Pro Personal got “a very good” B+ grade thanks to it being a bit under $20/year, per computer. If you’re looking to secure an online backup service for just one PC, there are very few other options that can match the number of features, storage space and price IDrive Pro Personal offers.

Even though IDrive offers excellent value for money, there’s an apparent lack of the unlimited storage option. Nevertheless, there are upgrade plans going up to 10TB should you have a need for more space. The absence of unlimited storage isn’t such a big deal considering that most other services that do offer it, only limit the service to one computer which essentially limits the storage to one hard drive.

 

Pricing

Price: $69.50

Performance

IDrive performed almost perfectly in the backup speed tests, receiving an A-. The average speed of MB/min showed the backup of 1TB of files would be approximately finished in six and a half days. This was the result of a test in a controlled environment, but to get a more accurate, complete picture of the time needed to transfer the data, we ran the backup tests several times during different days (including weekends) to get to the average length result of 15 days when measuring the transfer speed in MB/min. These tests were conducted on our network and the results you get may be different than ours depending on your network’s speed. IDrive Pro Personal is great for beginners because it has a clear interface and everything is just a few clicks away. There aren’t any unnecessary confusing options on the main window, but everything is rather clean and easily accessible.

Backup

The software comes with an abundance of backup features. There are many different options designed to give you the easiest backup experience on the market. You can perform backups yourself periodically, or you can schedule them and limit the use of your internet data. IDrive offers the option of creating a mirror image backup which is not that common for this type of service. Together with your subscription to IDrive, you get to use the premium IDrive Express feature that sends a physical hard drive to your address for faster transfer. This is especially useful if for any reason you want to drastically reduce the backup time of your device. Although some other services have a similar feature, IDrive is the only one that doesn’t charge for it (the feature is free to use once a year, after that IDrive charges $59.99).

Restoration

IDrive got a slightly lower mark on the performance test. We performed several restore sets at different times of the day and week (including weekends) and measured the MB/min speed at which the files transferred. The results showed that the average restore process of 1TB of data could complete in less than nine days. Considering the industry average for this type of transfer is 15 days, IDrive (even though it wasn’t the fastest in its category) did very well. The transfer speed you experience at home might be different due to your bandwidth. As well as the backup feature, restoring your files with IDrive is very easy. The IDrive Express feature can also be used to quickly get a physical copy of the data from the IDrive servers (the feature is free to use once a year, after that IDrive charges $59.99).

Security

IDrive uses the 256-bit AES encryption to secure your files. Though it might be uncommon since most top tier online backup services use other types of encryption, IDrive’s encryption of choice provides military-grade protection. Furthermore, to make sure your files are completely safe from anyone but you, IDrive encrypts the data before it starts to upload. It also gives you the option of creating your personal encryption key so you can be sure you are the only one that can access them.

IDrive Pro Personal is a reasonably priced, fast online backup service. It showed great performance results with backup & restore speeds above the industry average. It comes with the premium IDrive Express feature at no extra charge.

Help/Support

Email: To contact the support via email, fill out a request through this link: www.idrive.com/support

Phone number: For calls within the USA: 1-855-815-8706, for calls outside of the USA: 1-818-485-4333.

Website: www.idrive.com

Facebook: www.facebook.com/IDriveBackup

IDrive offers many useful information on its website. There are tutorials as well as a FAQ section with a large database of the most common issues users encounter. If you’d like to see what other users have to say, IDrive also has a community forum where you can start a new topic or learn something from the ones already created. To contact live support, you can phone, email or use the live chat option on the site.

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Our editorial staff evaluates products and services independently, but Best Review Guide may earn money when you click on links. Read our advertising disclosure.

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