Kings Security Dragnstore review

Dragnstore is a relatively new and little-known online backup provider that’s run by a UK security firm. It’s also the only one we’ve seen with a cute dragon mascot, so we gave it a chance to impress us, despite the company’s rather cluttered website.

When you first run the application, you’re prompted to set up an account, which begins life as a 30-day trial. You either select the directories you want to back up or let it automatically select key directories such as your Documents folder. You’ll then be asked to configure a daily, weekly or monthly backup schedule to run at a certain time and day, although this can be disabled. Finally, it’ll ask you if you want to run an initial backup.

Like other online backup clients, the Dragnstore application loads at boot time by default and remains active in the background, but it’s significantly slower to load and more resource heavy than any of the rival applications we tested. It’s simple to use, though, and doesn’t overwhelm you with extra features. The main window gives you just three options. Backup starts an immediate manual backup of your selected directories and Restore lets you choose any of your past backups for full or partial restoration.

The name is painful and the backup provision is fairly basic

It’s worth noting, however, that this tool only restores them to their original location or a replicated folder structure on a different PC. If you want to download content to other locations, you need to use Dragnstore’s slightly clunky web interface to navigate to and download individual files. The web interface also provides you with an online storage directory into which you can upload files from anywhere, including your mobile devices. The desktop application also includes a fairly comprehensive settings menu from which you can change your backup schedule, select different folders to back up and view your backup history.

Dragnstore covers the essentials of online backup, incrementally storing files that have been created since your last backup. However, it doesn’t detect changes in file size or modification date, nor does it support versioning. There aren’t any options to synchronise files between your devices, either. We also found that the desktop client was slow to load.

The cheapest account available as a monthly subscription provides 50GB of storage for £6.60 per month, although packages range from 5GB for an annual £8.50 to 100GB for £11.99 per month or £118.80 per year. A 30-day free trial of the 5GB service is available.

Unfortunately, between its relatively expensive and somewhat confusing pricing, limited features and apparent inability to detect changes in files, Dragnstore compares poorly to online backup services such as Memset SquirrelSave.