Pro Softnet iDrive Pro review

Unlike some of its unlimited rivals, iDrive offers a fixed 150GB of backup space. However, as you can only back up from a single computer, this space is likely to be enough. A Family Pack is also available, providing 500GB of storage which can be shared between five PCs. If you have a lot of data to backup, for a one-off fee of $70 (around £46), Pro Softnet can send you an external hard disk that you can fill and post back for upload.

During installation, you have to first download a local client and then install an extra plug-in called iDrive Explorer, which mounts your iDrive as a virtual hard disk on your PC. This makes it easy to browse your stored backups, as well as copy files to and from your iDrive and select which of 30 older versions of the file you wish to restore.

After you’ve installed the main iDrive client, you’re asked to select the directories you wish to back up, selecting your Documents, Music, Pictures and Desktop by default. Adding and removing directories here is a simple as ticking or un-ticking a box. With that done, you can choose to back your data up immediately, schedule the backup for a set time or configure a continuous backup. This feature is designed to automatically recognise changes made to small files (50MB and under) and back them up every 10 minutes. Larger files are still only backed up according to your schedule.

The client looks a bit less polished than those of some rival online backup services, but it does everything we’d want, with tree-view tabs to make it easy to select files and folders for backup and restoration. You can define a weekly or monthly backup schedule, along with an email address that can be notified if your backup fails for any reason.

iDrive’s web interface is basic but easy to use. You can download files individually, download an entire folder, or remotely manage the backup settings of the PC with the iDrive client installed on it, but you can’t share files with others. IDrive works well, but doesn’t provide as much space or save as many versions as other services, while Livedrive has more features and is better all-round.