If a backup is running, you can also select "View Progress" to check the backup status of each file. The dedicated Dropbox Backup window shows you the status of the last backup and you can click "View Contents" at any time to launch the Dropbox Backup web portal to access your files. Dropbox Backup also supports backing up to external drives. The good news is that backups are incremental, so future backups only record the differences between this backup and the last which can save huge amounts of space. By default the client will automatically run backups every 15 minutes. When Dropbox Backup first launches, you choose which folders you wish to sync. Dropbox Backup is also only available as an option for existing users using the desktop client. Minor quibbles, really, for a platform that delivers an impressively wide breadth of services across all platforms at a good price.ĭropbox is already one of the biggest names in cloud storage. We were also able to use the web app to restore a modified version of our test document to the original version with just a few mouse clicks. However when we opened the sparse web interface, we were able to restore the folder from the trash without issue. When we deliberately deleted a file in order to see how iDrive handled restoring data, we were disappointed to see that it wasn't possible to recover the data using the desktop client. The sync speed was excellent and you can see the progress of individual files by clicking into the "cloud-drive" folder.
When we reviewed the service, we were impressed with how it stood up to our tests. Personal plans can do this once a year for free, while business plans can do it thrice. If your internet isn't fast enough to back up or restore hundreds of gigabytes of data, the IDrive Express service allows you to send files to or from iDrive on a USB drive via the mail. The catch is that the price, which has already risen from around $60 as of March 2024, shoots up to just under $100 after the first year.
But for all its power, we found iDrive's apps very easy to use, and our speed tests revealed backup performance was a good match for Google Drive and the top storage contenders.Ī basic Personal plan starts at 5TB for just under $70 a year, with the Business plan starting at 250GB for the same price. You can protect as many devices as you like with a single account.Ī lengthy list of backup options starts with simple file and folder protection, but you can also protect your iPhone's photos, videos, contacts and calendar, maybe add SMS on an Android phone, even create a full disk image for disaster recovery purposes later. For more experienced users, there’s Linux via assorted scripts, and a range of network-attached storage devices like QNAP, Synology, Netgear, and Asustor. Wide platform support covers Windows, Mac, Android, and iOS, and an intuitive browser portal. It effortlessly handles everything from simple photo backups for mobile and sharing files across networks, to protecting SQL, Exchange, SharePoint, and many other servers. IDrive is a user-friendly cloud backup service that’s great for personal and business use. It's a made up day and definitely a nebulous PR coup of some kind, so don't expect discounts to come off the back of it (although Spring sales have definitely sprung anyway), but when Backblaze is claiming that 21% of people have never made a backup before, maybe March should be the month you get with the programme. March 30th is Cloud Backup Day, an independent initiative backed by a number of providers that we love like Mega and Backblaze that encourages people who have never made a backup before to get in on the craze. We’ve also highlighted automatic backup performance and extras like cloud storage for personal or business use.īelow we'll list what we think are the best cloud backup services currently available, keeping up to date with the latest offers for March, 2024. As part of our review process, we’ve highlighted security features, disaster recovery tools, interface and experience, platform availability, and pricing. For that reason, we’ve tested the best cloud backup services.