The 1&1 Ionos HiDrive cloud storage facility that can be used for a wide variety of individual and business needs.
1&1 Ionos HiDrive is a bit of a mouthful of a name (it’s actually the result of the merger of two companies), but once you get into the service itself you’ll find that this is one of the better cloud storage offerings out there – at least in terms of covering the core features.
As with a lot of cloud storage services, you need to make yourself aware of the specific strengths and the weaknesses of 1&1 Ionos HiDrive before deciding if its the right product for you. The good news is, we’ve outlined all the pros and cons for you in this review.
1&1 Ionos HiDrive is one of the few cloud storage packages that offers both file synchronization and ad hoc data storage, rather than focusing on one or the other. You’ve got client apps for Windows, Android and iOS to make use of, for viewing your files and getting them up to the cloud – the mobile apps can do document scanning and auto-uploading for your photos and videos. If you’re on macOS, you need to mount your HiDrive as a server or just stick to the web interface.
You highlight the folders you need to keep safe, and the software then dispatches them to HiDrive cloud storage. Devices that support WebDAV, FTP, rSync, SCP and Git (such as NAS boxes) are supported too, as are external disk drives, and you get full control over the data tree hierarchy and which folders are included. What you don’t get are complete bare metal backups of your entire system, OS, settings apps and all.
There’s also no file versioning, a feature commonly found on other cloud services like this, so you can’t roll back to earlier versions of your files. File and folder sharing is covered, however, and you have the option of adding passwords and expiry dates to your shares as well if you need that little bit of extra security. This works well and is easy to configure no matter what your sharing needs are.
You can’t do a huge amount with your data in terms of streaming video or music from the web or anything like that, but you can view images and documents that are saved as PDF without having to download them to disk first.
