IDrive

Easy to configure on a Synology NAS to backup to the Cloud

Comentarios: This was an excellent experience, from signing up to installing -- the whole process took hardly any time.

Puntos a favor:

I loved the fact that there is a native app available for our Synology DS220+ NAS. This app made installing and backing up our data very simple.

Contras:

It's mildly irritating to have to login to iDrive from the Synology dashboard each time I visit the status page.

Inexpensive storage with great basic functionality

Comentarios: Pretty good. Upload speeds are limited by my bandwidth and I would definitely use the mail-in Express service if the UK shipping charges were more reasonable, or they had a UK-based upload service. Backups have worked as expected and I hope never to have to use the recovery service for anything other than testing purposes.

Puntos a favor:

The cost per terabyte is commendably low and was the initial reason I tested iDrive. All the basic functionality was available in the desktop app that I needed - scheduled backups of internal and external media. Initial testing showed that everything worked pretty much as expected 'out of the box' and that backups could be easily restored. I was sufficiently impressed to purchase the software. I've used it to backup about half a terabyte of data so far, with more to be uploaded. Scheduled backups run as expected, or as soon as the machine is turned on. They also run if the machine is sleeping - waking, backing up and sleeping again. During the testing phase I contacted customer support with a relatively trivial query (see comment below re timestamps) and got a prompt answer - that was reassuring.

Contras:

All timings by the software use PST (Pacific Standard Time) and a US format timestamp. I'm on the other side of the world and it seems nonsensical for me to schedule a 9 am backup on the 10th of November (10/11/22) to find that the system records it as being made at 3 am on 11/10/22. If backups are daily and no more frequent this shouldn't be an issue, but it could well cause problems (or at least confusion) if backups were more frequent.I would like to see more granularity in the backup scheduling. For example - to set weekly backups for one external drive and daily backups for another. My understanding from the FAQ and help files, together with practical use of the system, is that all network/external drives are handled as a single backup set. The only way to omit one would be to leave it unplugged. In the same way, all local files/folders are handled as a single backup set, again with no granularity. The advantage of this approach is simplicity, the disadvantage is a lack of flexibility. For peace of mind, simplicity is better ... but I'd still like the option of more granularity.

Bugs & Glitches

Puntos a favor:

I was attracted by the price and features

Contras:

Unreliable, too many bugs & glitches. Unusable most of the times. Very slow speed. Bad techincal support. Obsolete system design. Awful.

Actually way better then expected !

Comentarios: The only thing I didn't test so far is their support. And this is because of a very good reason : Everything works like a charm for me ! For the rest I manage to setup my workflow about backup and other things very smoothly thanks to their clear documentation.

Puntos a favor:

I've reach a point were I couldn't store data anymore with Google One, unless paying way too much for my situation. I've found a very cheap deal to test iDrive, and I have to admit that not only it does all the things I wanted, but I've discovered that it allows me to setup and do much more than that actually ! I'm located in Europe (Belgium), and the transfer speed is really for for me.

Contras:

I can't find anything so far that I don't like about it...

Easy to use cloud backup solution with affordable price

Comentarios: Finally I don't have to worry about private files in case of HW failures.

Puntos a favor:

I use IDrive for personal use. I purchased it around BlackFriday with nice promo price for 10TB storage for 1 year.It has the best and the most user friendly Windows client application which allows to setup backup/restore files, to schedule backup tasks, it supports incremental backups, offers definition of folders which will be automatically synced with cloud storage and also to perform complete computer backup in cloud (this one I didn't try so far). There are also some backup features which I don't need but small businesses might benefit for:MS SQL Sever,MS Exchange Server, Exchange Brick level (Individual mailbox backup),MS Sharepoint Sever,System State (boot file, registry, active directory, system volume, ...)Hyper-VVMware (ESXi, VMs)Microsoft 365 (mailbox data)Cloud drive functionality additionally allows sharing files with other people if needed.

Contras:

Huge price increase after 1 year promo price period expires. Hopefully, there will be some promotions before expiry which will allow existing users to prolong subscription under better price.I like to fly with my drone and record videos. Beware that there is a huge problem with IDrive related to file size limit. If you need to share files bigger that 2GB, unfortunately IDrive won't be a solution for you unless you prepare your files by splitting them into smaller ones.