IDrive Online Backup Blog on IDrive, online backup, cloud storage and other topics of interest

** Update: This contest is on hold until further notice, as of June 24th, 2009. No new winners will be selected until after this contest resumes.**

Contest begins June 13th, 2009 at 12:01am Pacific Time. Each and every day* we will give one really lucky @IDrive_Online follower a FREE 1-Year 150GB IDrive Pro for Personal Use account ($50 value!) AND a FREE 320GB IDrive Portable USB drive ($70 value!)

Here are the contest rules –

1. Follow @IDrive_Online on Twitter

2. Sign up for a FREE 2GB IDrive Online Backup account **. VERY IMPORTANT: your account must be created BEFORE entering the contest. If you are chosen as a winner, but have not created an account prior to entering, you will be disqualified.

3. Retweet the following message each day to enter…
Entered IDrive Online Backup $120 DAILY Freebie Contest! *IMPORTANT: SEE RULES B4 RETWEETING!* http://bit.ly/nkEN8 #120DFC

4. Winners must provide the email address used to sign up for the FREE 2GB IDrive Online Backup account, so that we can upgrade it to a FREE 1-Year 150GB IDrive Pro for Personal Use account. Winners must also provide their shipping address, so that we can mail the 320GB IDrive Portable USB drive.

* Special Rule: On days where contest participation is low (<5 eligible contestants), we will not announce anyone as a winner.

** Special Note: Previous winners are ineligible to win again, whether they had won in this current contest or won in previous IDrive contests.

This contest will run every day, so keep playing until you win! Mon-Thurs winners will be tweeted the following day, while Fri-Sun winners will be tweeted the following Monday. Good luck!

** Update: This contest ended June 12th, 2009. **

Late last year we started paying close attention to Twitter as a way to interact with our users, reach out to new prospective customers, provide immediate support, announce our new features, press mentions, new partnerships and blog posts for IDrive Online Backup. So, in that light we’re announcing our newest special promotion, the “IDrive Twitter Free Account DAILY” contest!

Starting tomorrow (May 27, 2009) at 12:01am PDT, the contest begins. Each day we will give one lucky @IDrive_Online follower a FREE 1-Year 150GB IDrive Pro for Personal Use account! This contest is only for NEW IDrive Online Backup users who have a FREE 2GB account. Existing IDrive Online Backup customers are not eligible.

Here are the contest rules –

1. Follow @IDrive_Online on Twitter

2. Create a FREE 2GB IDrive Online Backup account. Account must be created AFTER 12:01am PDT, May 27, 2009 and BEFORE you enter the contest. If you are chosen as a winner, but have not created an account prior to entering, you will be disqualified.

3. Re-Tweet the following message each day to enter. Entered IDrive Online Backup DAILY CONTEST to win 1YR 150GB account ($49.50 value). RT! SEE RULES http://is.gd/FGet #ITFAD

4. Winners must provide us with their email address so that we can upgrade their FREE 2GB IDrive Online Backup account to a FREE 1-Year account.

This contest will run every day, so keep playing until you win! Mon-Thurs winners will be tweeted the following day, while Fri-Sun winners will be tweeted the following Monday. Good luck!

** Update: This contest ended April 28th, 2009. **

With Twitter’s popularity growing, we decided to start paying attention and join the fray. Twitter has given us a great new outlet to announce new features, press mentions, new partnerships and blog posts for IDrive Online Backup. Not to mention it gives us a unique way to network with our customers to provide support, offers tips and advice, and offer special promotions.

In that light, we are happy to announce our new Daily Twitter “IDrive Portable Giveaway” Contest! Here’s how to enter and win…

Each and every day, we will select an IDrive Twitter follower at random and give them a free 320 GB IDrive Portable. Contestants need to follow http://twitter.com/IDrive_Online and ReTweet the following message between the hours of 12:01am and 11:59pm each day to enter: Just entered IDrive Online Backup Daily Giveaway! Win by following @IDrive_Online and RT! http://is.gd/o4Wr #IOBDG. This contest will end Tuesday, April 28th, 2009.

This contest will run every day, so keep playing until you win! Mon-Thurs winners will be tweeted the following day, while Fri-Sun winners will be tweeted the following Monday. Good luck!

When it comes to Backup, it’s always best to have dual approach… backup all your important files locally, and then backup your most critical files online where you’ll have access to them from anywhere. Then, as time permits, you can backup the rest of your important files online, which does take some time… based on your bandwidth, number of GBs being backed up, etc.

This dual approach has been widely adopted and praised by companies and consumers world-wide. In this recent article from Accounting Web: “10 steps to the CPA’s perfect backup plan”, this approach was highly recommended. The main reason being… in the event of a disastrous data loss where restoration of all your files is absolutely imperative, you can restore your files immediately from your local backup vs. having to slowly restore them online, based on those same limitations of bandwidth, number of GBs being restored, etc.

For this reason, we are proud to introduce the IDrive Portable; the thinnest and lightest USB-powered portable hard drive ever in its class.

In addition to a great sleek and stylish form factor, IDrive Portable offers a software element that allows for a one-click backup of all your important files (like ‘Documents’, ‘Pictures’, ‘Videos’, ‘Music’, etc.). In addition, it provides an option to easily integrate with IDrive Online Backup using the same data-set (assuming you choose the defaults), but of course the data-sets and schedules are customizable. Other great features include multiple PC backup, 320 GB of storage, open/locked file backup, and more. For details, please see the “IDrive Portable Features” on our website.

Written by,

Robert Haines
Business Development Manager - IDrive

We are bombarded every single day with news of our troubled economy; how our banking systems are collapsing, how auto makers are failing, how credit and insurance companies are hording money and barely staying solvent; how the housing market is crumbling and Americans are losing their homes; and so forth. It’s a dark time in our country’s history; one which all the analysts and experts say will get much worse before it gets better. Consumer spending is at a low-point as Americans are saving what money they can in hopes of trying to stay ahead of this financial disaster.

However, at the same time Americans are doing something they haven’t done in a while… appreciating the little things. People are enjoying more quiet nights at home, spending time with their friends and families. People are seeking inexpensive leisure activities such as going out to the park, attending social gatherings, etc. Along with such activities, many people are doing what they can to capture these good moments and hold on to these memories. They are blogging more, taking more digital photos and/or filming more home videos of family and friends, and so forth.

This economic and social shift has led to a vastly growing need for data storage to archive these new digital photos, home videos, writing projects and other important media files. People need inexpensive, reliable, automated, and simple-to-use backup solutions to manage this need for them. At IDrive Online Backup, we understand this great need and we make it very simple and user-friendly to backup your cherished memories.

IDrive users receive 150 GB of online storage, which is perfect for backing up your important files. The process is very simple to do and automated after the initial setup (designed for the “set it and forget it” user mentality). Best of all, IDrive costs a mere $4.95/month, which is about the cost of a Venti coffee these days. Users can also opt for a yearly payment plan of only $49.50 (includes two months free). With such inexpensive and reliable online backup, we are doing our part in helping people hold onto their precious memories, should their computer hard drives or other traditional backup methods ever falter or fail.

Written by,

Robert Haines
Business Development Manager - IDrive

We have the online backup applications for the Windows and Mac platforms. It was only fitting that we offer a Contacts Online Backup for the iPhones.

It is a very easy to use application with one button executions for backups and restores. It does not even require a signup.

“Well, I always sync my iPhone to the desktop, so it is already backed up, so why would I need an online backup for my contacts?”, one might say. Actually it is quite surprising how many iPhone users use iPhone as a pure phone and hardly sync to the desktop. To them, we believe that they would find  IDrive Lite very useful. It is free. We will keep enhancing this application more, possibly add photos backup and sharing functionality.

IDrive launched nation wide TV commercials with the ‘Did You Back It Up’ theme earlier this week.

Online Backup as a concept is still relatively new outside of the tech community and early adopters and very few people and small businesses know about it or use it, so the ad aims to inform the public about the need for backup and introduces IDrive Online Backup. Here is the press release related to the same.

You might wonder what is the link between Financial Turmoils facing Wall Street today and Online Backup?

There is, and it has to do with the general feel to ‘protect’. Protect the wealth one has, protect the tangible valuables one has and , protect the digital assets. We were expecting signups and traffic to decrease in relation to the financial tremors, but on the contrary, we are seeing an uptick, and this is why. People have a natural tendency to protect what they have including digital assets, and one of the best ways to do it is using online backup. It is becoming easier to use, faster, more secure, and more affordable.

IDrive is leading the way here with enterprise features packed into a consumer and small business application. You will not find an online backup solution for $4.95/Month that offers true archiving, web based backup management, fast search and restore.

If you are looking for an integrated online backup, storage, sharing and a hot sites based disaster recovery solution, then IBackup is a better fit. It provides options to create a full copy of the primary location data at the secondary location with minimal lag, that is scalable, affordable and can easily be automated, for small to medium sized businesses.

Raghu Kulkarni

We receive 100’s of emails from users every day asking various things about IDrive. Here are the top 10 tips or pieces of information (not in any particular order) related to IDrive Online Backup .

1.  IDrive does true archiving. If you delete data on your desktop or remove your mapped drive or USB drive, your data on IDrive is not automatically deleted.

2.  IDrive does block level patching for incremental transfers. This means IDrive backs up only modified pieces of your files, not the whole files making the backup process very efficient.

3. You don’t have to be infront of your desktop to manage your schedules and backup set. You can do it via web from anywhere.

4.  IDrive sports possibly the best search among backup services. Search via the desktop client or via web, you will see near instant results.

5. If you think the IDrive backup is hogging too much of your bandwidth and affects your ongoing work, check the ‘auto-pause’ option on progress bar. It suddenly turns into an intelligent auto sensing application and uses bandwidth only when you don’t.

6.  To protect your most commonly used critical data, all that you really need to do is install and provide authentication information. That is it!

7.  Works on Mac!

8.  Finder plugin on Mac!

9.  With the optional user defined encryption key, your data is fully encrypted, end to end. This should help you and your business meet many regulatory requirements.

10. You can do folder restores either from desktop client or directly via web using an applet!