iDrive, a leading name in online backup services, recently added a new feature: unlimited cloud-to-cloud backup for Microsoft 365 Personal accounts. This addition is part of iDrive’s ongoing effort to provide strong and secure backup solutions, building on their previous work for Google Workspace and Office 365 business users.
The new plan costs $20 per user per year, the same as last year’s professional offering, making it a budget-friendly choice for individual users. It supports a variety of applications that back up files to OneDrive, such as Outlook, Word, PowerPoint, OneNote, and Excel.
iDrive has long been a trusted choice for cloud backup, with plans ranging from a free option to paid plans offering storage capacities from 5TB ($24.88 annually) to a massive 100TB ($699.65 annually). The new backup plan showcases iDrive’s dedication to data security and recovery.
- Monitoring and Backup: The new plan actively keeps track of your data and creates a backup three times a day. This means that your data is copied and stored in a secure location at three different times during the day.
- Secure Transfer: Each time your data is transferred to iDrive’s servers for backup, it is protected with AES 256-bit encryption. This is a high level of security that ensures your data cannot be easily accessed by unauthorized parties during the transfer process.
- Recovery: If a user accidentally deletes a file or if a file becomes corrupted (damaged in a way that it can’t be used), they can easily restore it. The recovery can be done from within their account, meaning they can access and restore their files directly on the iDrive platform.
- Direct Download: In addition to recovering files on the platform, users also have the option to download the recovered files directly to their device. This provides flexibility in how users can access their recovered data.
Following the “rule of three” suggested by online backup services, iDrive adds an extra layer of data protection. Users who have already backed up their Microsoft 365 data to OneDrive can now rest easy knowing their data is securely stored for future access.
However, the new offering does have a limitation: the ‘unlimited cloud storage’ only applies to files backed up from Microsoft 365 Personal accounts, means it’s not intended to service an entire organization. But it does offer benefits like ‘granular recovery’—the ability to restore individual files instead of an entire backup—which can save users a lot of time.
Managing an additional cloud storage service might seem overwhelming, but for those who already have an iDrive and a Microsoft account, this integration could be a valuable addition. Users can even add 365 Personal backups to their existing iDrive account, making the process even more streamlined.
