Sam White

Apr 3, 2023

iDrive versioning is ideal for Quicken and OneDrive

I subscribed to iDrive in search of a backup solution for OneDrive and Quicken specifically. I was using Norton Backup and did not like the lack of control I had over failed jobs. If a single job failed, they forced the user to re-run all of the backup jobs, whether they were a source of the problem or not. I tried DropBox and did not like the imposing shortcut they place for the sync folder in the navigation pane of Windows Explorer on Windows 10 (it’s all I tested it on). I had to resort to a set of registry edits to remove the shortcut once I uninstalled the software. It’s been a known issue for years, so I have to conclude that they see it as a form of branding your PC with a “DropBox was here” sort of mark. Their backup offers basically a one-way sync of the files you choose. There is no way to easily create multiple versions of the files you backup, either with multiple backup sets or versioning. At first I was confused by the lack of multiple backup sets with iDrive until I discovered the versioning feature they implemented. For anyone using Quicken, it will completely change the way you backup your database. Rather than give each backup a date and time stamp in the file name (this leads to serious file cleanup issues with most systems that keep files even when deleted from the source) you allow iDrive to version a single backup file name (up to 30 versions!), brilliant. They don’t even charge for the storage space the old versions use, just the current file. Traditional backup with named media and multiple backup sets iDrive is not, but once you understand their design and usage, it’s a slick little backup service, especially with the versioning feature they have implemented. Be patient with your initial upload, it’s not the fastest transfer I’ve seen, but subsequent iterations work in a few minutes as long as the updates stay below a gig. Would recommend a closer look.