Pros & Cons
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- Excellent value
- Unlimited devices per account
- Strong security options, including password-protected shared files
- 10GB of free backup
- Backs up mobile data, plus cloud data from third-party platforms
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- Complete disk imaging is only available for Windows PCs
- Android app has more backup options than the iOS app
IDrive Specs
| Android App | |
| Emphasis | Backup |
| File Sharing | |
| File Size Limit | 2GB |
| File Versioning | |
| Folder Syncing | |
| Free Storage | 10GB |
| iOS App | |
| Number of Computers (Base Plan) | Unlimited |
| Private Key Encryption | |
| Storage (Base Plan) | 100GB |
| Versions Kept | 30 |
| Versions Period | Unlimited |
| Windows App |
You should employ backup software to protect your data; otherwise, you risk losing photos, documents, and other valuable files. On that note, do yourself a favor by checking out IDrive, the best bang-for-your-buck service I've tested. It offers more storage than most people will ever need, and at a price lower than most competing apps. You simply install IDrive on all your Macs, PCs, and mobile devices, and then don't think about it—which is precisely how an effective backup tool should work. It’s also a great choice for safeguarding cloud data from third-party apps such as Box, Dropbox, Google, Microsoft, and Salesforce. For its outstanding value, reliable service, and easy setup, IDrive is an Editors' Choice winner for backup software.
Plans and Prices: Low-Cost Backup With Generous Storage
IDrive offers a free version with 10GB of storage space. You don't need to enter payment information to use it. Most people won't be able to back up their entire computer with 10GB, but it's enough space to store a lot of documents and images. It's a generous move on IDrive's part, since most backup apps I've tested lack a free version.
(Credit: IDrive/PCMag)The entry-level plan, IDrive Mini, starts at $2.95 per year for 100GB of storage. That's an exceptionally low price, though anyone with a large collection of videos, photos, documents, and audio files may fill up that space quickly. Still, it’s an excellent tier, especially if you don't have a lot of multimedia files. It supports a single user account.
For most people, though, IDrive Personal is the better option for individual users. Personal starts at $99.50 per year for 5TB of storage, and covers multiple computers. You get a discount on the first-year price ($69.65, down from $99.50).
Competitor SpiderOak One offers 5TB to individual users for $320 per year. Backblaze offers unlimited storage for $99 per year, but that plan supports only a single computer and doesn't support mobile devices. This means that IDrive represents the best value for most individual users, especially if they only need 100GB of storage.
IDrive's Business plans start at $99.50 per year for 250GB of storage shared among unlimited users, computers, and servers, and they scale up from there (you can max out storage at 5TB for $1499.50 per year). It's competitive for business-grade backup and medium-to-large companies. Need backup for a smaller company? IDrive Team provides five users and computers with 5TB of storage for a low $99.95 per year (scaling up to 500 users and 500TB of storage for $6999 per year). Both plans offer first-year discounts, like IDrive Personal.
In a nice touch, all IDrive tiers, including the free version, can back up files locally to an external or network drive. Many services don't offer local backup; others, including Carbonite Safe, charge extra for the feature. There's no device limit, so you can back up as many devices as you like with any IDrive plan.
IDrive offers desktop clients for macOS and Windows. There's also a command-line-only version of IDrive for Linux, but it's intended mainly for servers.
Account Setup, Folder Backup, and Sync
After creating your account, you'll receive links to download IDrive to every device you want to back up. Then you sign in to your account and decide which files to back up regularly.
You can back up selected folders, such as your documents and pictures, or back up your entire hard drive. In testing, I liked that IDrive let me select the folders I wanted to safeguard before the initial backup; Backblaze made me exclude data after the first backup, which I found tedious.
The desktop app makes it easy to back up as many files as you like on a regular schedule—or nearly continuously, with the Real-Time feature you can activate in the options menu. The default is to back up every day, first thing in the morning, which is ideal for most people. If you want less frequent updates, you can choose days and times for the operation to run. Backup power users will appreciate the flexibility.
(Credit: IDrive/PCMag)You can enable the optional syncing service, Cloud Drive, in settings. With it, any files you drop into the Cloud Drive folder are backed up and synced across your other devices, just as Dropbox does. It's not turned on by default, and the company even refers to it as a "separate service," which is odd, seeing as it's included with IDrive.
As I mentioned earlier, IDrive doesn't just back up files to the cloud; it also backs up to an external drive or a network drive. Having at least two backups—one remote and one local—is a wise safety strategy, and with IDrive, you can use the same application for both, which I like. There's even support for creating a complete disk image, but it's limited to Windows. All these features make IDrive a complete backup offering. That said, the Editors' Choice winner Arcserve ShadowProtect SPX Desktop lets you create disk images of Windows and Linux machines.
Business-Friendly Cloud Backups
IDrive isn't limited to backing up files on your computer. It can also back up files stored in other cloud services, which is useful if you ever lose access to your cloud account or if files are accidentally deleted. IDrive currently supports backing up five services: Box, Dropbox, Google Workspace, Microsoft 365, and Salesforce. It costs $20 per account per year, which could be a good deal depending on how much you store with them.
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The Box, Dropbox, Microsoft, and Salesforce backups come with unlimited storage, while the Google Workspace backup is capped at 10TB. Because you pay an additional fee for this service, the space used for the backups does not count toward the storage in your IDrive account. I like that they're counted separately, because it gives you more storage to work with.
It's easy to use, too. I simply signed into IDrive with my Google and Microsoft accounts, and the backups began. Files and emails (Gmail and Outlook) were automatically and incrementally backed up. Additionally, IDrive's versioning support let me retrieve a document from last week, before I made certain changes.
Note that the cloud backup service is geared more toward companies than individual users. When you use it, it looks and feels less like what you would normally see with consumer backup services and more like what administrators of large business accounts see.
Simple File Sharing
You can share any file backed up with IDrive from the web interface. There's no support for directly sharing a file with another IDrive user, as you can with Dropbox; you can only generate a URL to the file. On the upside, you can password-protect shared files (something you cannot do with Backblaze), limit the number of downloads, and set the number of days the file will be available for others to view and download.
Note that you cannot share files that are backed up from third-party cloud services the way you can share files that are backed up from your computers. The reason is for security: IDrive's cloud backup is designed for business customers. The ability to share files rightfully is controlled from the Box, Dropbox, Google Workspace, Microsoft 365, and Salesforce accounts.
Mobile App Backup: Calendar, Contacts, and Other Data
In addition to your computers, IDrive backs up your mobile devices. On iOS, it handles your calendar, contacts, photos, and videos. Android users have even more options, with the ability to backup their complete SMS and call log histories, as well as locally stored music. You can also use the mobile app to browse and download any file you've backed up from your computer.
In testing, I found the photo backup feature to be the biggest selling point, because photos are the only truly irreplaceable data most people keep on their phones. Installing IDrive on a mobile device is an easy way to ensure you never lose those pictures.
File Recovery Options
The IDrive desktop and mobile app both have Restore functionality that lets you choose which files you want to recover and where you'd like them to go. Everything happens in the background, which is what you want. However, restoring a lot of files at once might take a while, depending on their size.
For some people, like those with finicky internet or frequent power outages, initiating a long, slow download that runs in the background for hours or days isn't a viable option. In those instances, IDrive offers the option to recover files via a hard drive shipped to you by mail—an option called IDrive Express ($99.50 per request). It's potentially much faster to restore a large amount of data (up to 1TB) via a physical hard drive than over the internet. Want to send backups to IDrive for the same reasons? Subscribers with a Personal plan can request a free backup drive once per year; business customers can request it three times per year. After that, IDrive charges $59.95 per drive.
In addition to the US, IDrive offers mail-in restoration in Australia, Canada, Germany, France, Italy, New Zealand, and the UK. If you're in the US, IDrive provides a return shipping label for the hard drive. Customers outside the US may incur additional shipping costs, and all customers must pay for any damaged drives.
This kind of service is uncommon, but not unique. Backblaze, for example, offers a similar feature. It charges $279 for the service, though you can get a refund if you return the 8TB drive within 30 days. Still, it's nice to have a quicker option for restoring large backups, particularly for people with slow download speeds.
Cloud backups can be restored in their entirety to either the original cloud account or to a new one. Cloud accounts can only be restored to like cloud accounts—for example, Microsoft accounts can only be restored to Microsoft accounts, and Google accounts can only be restored to Google accounts. There’s also an export option, which makes it possible to download all files from a cloud account to your computer (at which point you could transfer the files to the cloud account of your choice).
Strong Security
IDrive states that all uploads are encrypted with 256-bit AES during transfer and when stored on servers, which is the industry standard. Multi-factor authentication is also supported, which is commonplace in the backup category. You can use time-based one-time passcodes sent to an authenticator app (the method the PCMag security team recommends), or you can settle for receiving a code by email or SMS.
IDrive lets you manage backup encryption keys for enhanced security. That said, if you ever lose or forget the password, IDrive won't be able to help you reset it, and you won't be able to access the data.