Let us help you decide between iDrive and Google Drive.
In computing’s early days, data was typically stored on a user’s device. Any overflow would generally spill onto an external drive like a USB stick (opens in new tab), meaning consumers would have to invest their money carefully into a device that would last a long time or face paying even more money for additional hardware.
Businesses later turned to in-house servers en masse, promising access to all data from all computers on the same network. VPNs changed this somewhat, adding greater accessibility, but the entire setup remains to this day rather expensive and can prove challenging to maintain, requiring dedicated, specially trained staff.
Cloud storage seems to be, for now, the ultimate solution, with access promised from virtually anywhere, minimal setup and input from the user, and reasonable pricing. Picking between a storage pot to replace your existing hard drive and a backup tool to make copies of your own hard drive can be difficult, but this head-to-head does this thinking for you.
iDrive (opens in new tab)’s primary focus is in its service as a cloud backup tool – rather than taking over your hard drive’s job, its purpose is to create online copies in case of emergency.
There are desktop clients for Windows, macOS, and Linux, as well as iOS and Android apps, so most bases are covered. And don’t be thinking that you need to pay for a high-end plan to unlock all of these – unlike some competitors, iDrive supports all of these in all accounts. The only premium features reserved for Business users is server backup.
The overall experience and user interface feels a bit 2010s by today’s standards, but while it may not be as slick as the likes of BackBlaze (which handily resides inside your computer’s settings environment rather than its own app), it’s full of features and remains cost effective.
Inside the desktop clients – which you’ll need to create backups of your computer – there are controls for things like bandwidth throttling and file exclusion, but given that the personal plans come with a generous amount of data, most users will be better off leaving iDrive to its own devices.
The mobile apps are less featureful, but photo library backups come into their own when a subscriber finds themselves on holiday or away from their main computing devices, where they can free up some storage so long as they have an Internet connection.
What sets this company out above all others is the so-called iDrive Express. Depending on the membership tier, paying subscribers can get one or three free physical backups sent to them in the mail within a week, on a temporary storage device. This is great in the case of network limitations.
