IDrive (Small Business)

The IDrive (Small Business) is a good cloud backup solution for small companies in part because its costs begins at $99.50 per year for 250 gigabytes (GB) of storage for the first year (note that the price has been reduced to $74.62 for a limited time). With this package, you'll enjoy an unlimited number of users plus a seeding service that can be used three times per year to help smooth out larger backup jobs. As for supported operating systems (OSes), Apple OS X and Microsoft Windows systems are natively supported with individual clients, but some backup script functionality is available for backing up Linux systems as well. There's also some support for mobile device backup, plus you get 24/7 support via chat, email, and phone. All in all, IDrive (Small Business) is a solid backup option, though it lags a bit behind current Editors' Choice winner Zetta Data Protection in our review roundup, due mainly on its focus consumer-grade operations (as opposed to business ones).

Installation and Setup

Signing up for IDrive (Small Business) is straightforward. After logging in for the first time, you're prompted to download one of the client applications to get started. After installation, IDrive (Small Business) will ask you to sign into your account. After that, it just starts running by using its default settings. While this can be unnerving, the defaults are good choices. The most common user folders are selected and, for most, this should not be an issue. App-specific backups can be configured under the Server Backup tab. Each option has its own peculiar setup, but most require only a few questions to be answered before they start working with the rest of the backup plan. The web console offers a number of interesting options. IDrive (Small Business) tends to be device-centric as opposed to user-centric, so it's very possible to get by with a single administrative account. However, there's a section that lets the primary admin create subaccounts with a specific storage quota. This could be useful when dividing up segments of the business that have greater or lesser storage demands rather than letting everyone dump data into the same pool.

In that vein, IDrive (Small Business) is willing to sign a HIPAA BAA (Business Associate Agreement) since they comply with all technical requirements for an organization to maintain HIPAA compliance. In addition, they are SOC1- and SOC2-compliant, demonstrating industry best practices in data management. That includes full Sarbanes Oxley (SOX) compliance, which governs electronic record retention for accounting purposes. Overall, this makes selecting IDrive (Small Business) a decision based on its management tools, since trusting IDrive (Small Business) with your data is a no-brainer. But management is where IDrive (Small Business) is less consistent. For example, there's only room for a single administrative user. While this may be okay for the smallest of companies, there will almost certainly be issues when scaling up to even just slightly larger IT department where multiple users could be making changes and require traceability. This isn't a major complaint since you can institute a workaround if your IT staff is willing to jump through a hoop or two, but it's worth mentioning.