iDrive Backup Surprise

[JillW]

I have used iDrive as computer backup for a few years now. Prior to that I used Carbonite, but there were issues syncing with my EHD's, so I switched.

Today I noticed a $65 charge from iDrive and when I checked why - I was over the allotted storage I had paid for. I don't believe I received any emails warning me that I was close to being over -- the $65 was strictly for the overage. My first thought was to just cancel all of it and try something different, but that is SUCH a pain (and takes forever!).
So I bit the bullet and upgraded to 10TB of storage (I'm just over 5TB now), which was $137 for a year - so today I dropped over $200 for storage.

Just curious if anyone that uses iDrive has ever had an issue like this.
I've made a note to myself to watch the usage from now on (however I think 10TB will be hard to fill up) .. and watch debits from my checking account more closely!!

EDIT: So after thinking about this most of the day and wondering how I could be over 5T storage when I don't have that much on my EHD's ... I did a live chat (the agent was very helpful) ... and learned that iDrive keeps everything - even if it's deleted from my PC - when I checked - it shows 5 EHD's worth of files ... I am only using two. But I have changed them out a few times - duplicating whatever was on the old EHD to a new one - so the majority of the files in iDrive are dups!
The agent offered to put in a ticket to request a refund for the overage and the upgrade (since I will be able to back to 5TB). Phew!

 

[HavaDrPepper]

I just started with IDrive on December 1. I really like the service. It is so fast, but then that could be because I upgraded my internet speed when I got fiber lines in November.

I signed up for the 5TB storage and have only used 17% of it at this time. But thanks for the warning. I'll keep a lookout to make sure I don't go over in the future.

 

[JillW]

I just started with IDrive on December 1. I really like the service. It is so fast, but then that could be because I upgraded my internet speed when I got fiber lines in November.

I signed up for the 5TB storage and have only used 17% of it at this time. But thanks for the warning. I'll keep a lookout to make sure I don't go over in the future.

It really is fast and I've never had an issue with it (knocking on wood ). Runs perfectly behind the scenes.

 

[tjscraps]

I use backblaze - how does it compare to iDrive I wonder?

 

[Vrielinkie]

Same here, I use Backblaze but being in Europe there's also not a lot of choices or alternatives (as far as I know)...

 

[JillW]

I use backblaze - how does it compare to iDrive I wonder?

I think I started out using Backblaze several years ago - can't remember why I switched, but something must not have been jiving with my system at the time ... I hate spending money like I had to today - but then I'd hate to lose everything even more - (lol -trying to talk myself into feeling better about the situation!) :w00t:

 

[LynnZant]

I spent almost a $1,000 getting (most) everything off a hard drive that stopped spinning January of 2020. It's a mistake, but $65 is better than it not backing up stuff and not telling you. I'm all about the cloud, but OneDrive isn't syncing with my D drive, so I'll be looking into iDrive. If it does externals, I'm hoping it likes my D drive. Thanks for the info.

 

[HavaDrPepper]

It really is fast and I've never had an issue with it (knocking on wood ). Runs perfectly behind the scenes.

Yep, I was amazed how fast the initial backup was. I did a small backup on that Sunday afternoon to see how it worked. 171.36 GB (around 72,100 files) backed up in 4 hours 26 min.

Then I set up the rest of the full backup for overnight. 468.29 GB (272,957 files) took just about 12 hours. In the old days of Carbonite and BackBlaze, it took weeks!

 

[JillW]

I spent almost a $1,000 getting (most) everything off a hard drive that stopped spinning January of 2020. It's a mistake, but $65 is better than it not backing up stuff and not telling you. I'm all about the cloud, but OneDrive isn't syncing with my D drive, so I'll be looking into iDrive. If it does externals, I'm hoping it likes my D drive. Thanks for the info.

I'm so sorry you had to spend $1000 to get everything off of your hard drive! Best of luck getting hooked up with IDrive, like I mentioned I was a little miffed at not getting notice today - but overall things have worked out well (and I feel like all of my stuff is secure!)

 

[HavaDrPepper]

I had used BackBlaze for quite a few years and I thought it was working. Then during a tornado warning in May 2019, the power went out and zapped my hard drive. I switched to my laptop until I could get a new desktop. I didn't have the BackBlaze running on it and it dawned on me that I was not having internet disconnects anymore.

Then when I got my new desktop and got BackBlaze up and running again, I realized that I was missing almost a month of backups before the power outage. I wasn't getting notices of not backing up either. And, I was having random internet disconnects again. When I stop BackBlaze, the disconnects stopped happening. When it was in use, I had them. I canceled it after getting a EHD backup disk for them (it took too long to download especially with the random internet disconnects).

I switched to multiple EHD and managed my backups myself for 4 years. Then after I got fiber internet and a faster speed, I decided to try iDrive. I have not had one internet disconnect in the 6 weeks that I've had it.

Others have no issues with BackBlaze. It just didn't work for me for a long time but I didn't know it was the cause of the problems I was having with internet disconnects!

 

[JillW]

I just started with IDrive on December 1. I really like the service. It is so fast, but then that could be because I upgraded my internet speed when I got fiber lines in November.

I signed up for the 5TB storage and have only used 17% of it at this time. But thanks for the warning. I'll keep a lookout to make sure I don't go over in the future.

I learned a little more about iDrive ... you can see my edit in the original post - just a little tidbit to keep in mind

 

[HavaDrPepper]

I learned a little more about iDrive ... you can see my edit in the original post - just a little tidbit to keep in mind

That's interesting. I don't have any of my EHD's in my backup so I wouldn't have that problem later on. But I have wondered if files that I delete are kept or removed from the backup.

I've been considering moving some of my scrapping kits off of my main drive to an EHD. They are mostly older kits that I have finally used and probably won't use again.

Something I need to think about. Thanks for the update!

 

[bestcee]

Make sure you check iDrive (and any backup service!) to make sure it's actually backing up what you think it is. Retrieve random files and make sure they are actually there and not corrupted.

I used iDrive for a hot minute. I used it for a week, but it turned out it wasn't backing up what it said it was. Luckily, since I was just trying it out, I only lost scrapbook pages, nothing irreplaceable. But it was really frustrating to find that it wasn't backing up despite claiming to be doing so.

 

[HavaDrPepper]

Make sure you check iDrive (and any backup service!) to make sure it's actually backing up what you think it is. Retrieve random files and make sure they are actually there and not corrupted.

I used iDrive for a hot minute. I used it for a week, but it turned out it wasn't backing up what it said it was. Luckily, since I was just trying it out, I only lost scrapbook pages, nothing irreplaceable. But it was really frustrating to find that it wasn't backing up despite claiming to be doing so.

I check the log every morning to see what has been backed up to make sure it is working as it should. Some days it is short if I haven't made any changes to documents or added any files. And, some days it is long (like when I've bought kits and extracted them). So far it is working just fine.

But like you said, no matter what service you use, you need to check it. I learned my lesson with BackBlaze not backing up for over a month and not notifying me that it wasn't even though I had that setting selected.

 

[HavaDrPepper]

EDIT: So after thinking about this most of the day and wondering how I could be over 5T storage when I don't have that much on my EHD's ... I did a live chat (the agent was very helpful) ... and learned that iDrive keeps everything - even if it's deleted from my PC - when I checked - it shows 5 EHD's worth of files ... I am only using two. But I have changed them out a few times - duplicating whatever was on the old EHD to a new one - so the majority of the files in iDrive are dups!
The agent offered to put in a ticket to request a refund for the overage and the upgrade (since I will be able to back to 5TB). Phew!

I just did a little digging into the iDrive help files and desktop app. There is an Archive Cleanup tab in the settings where you can delete files from the backup that are no longer on your computer. I will keep that in mind and check it out if needed.

For you, I would think that you could use it to delete the EHD's that are no longer being backed up (unless iDrive is doing it for you).

 

[JillW]

Make sure you check iDrive (and any backup service!) to make sure it's actually backing up what you think it is. Retrieve random files and make sure they are actually there and not corrupted.

I used iDrive for a hot minute. I used it for a week, but it turned out it wasn't backing up what it said it was. Luckily, since I was just trying it out, I only lost scrapbook pages, nothing irreplaceable. But it was really frustrating to find that it wasn't backing up despite claiming to be doing so.

Good reminder!! Strange that it wasn't backing things up correctly for you - so glad you caught it early on!!

 

[JillW]

I just did a little digging into the iDrive help files and desktop app. There is an Archive Cleanup tab in the settings where you can delete files from the backup that are no longer on your computer. I will keep that in mind and check it out if needed.

For you, I would think that you could use it to delete the EHD's that are no longer being backed up (unless iDrive is doing it for you).

Yep - that's what I used to delete 3 (!) EHD's I was no longer using - and, each time I changed them out, I'd copy everything over - so I had triplicates of nearly everything!!