IDriveSync

How do you keep all your files within easy reach so that, no matter what device you're using at the moment, you can always pull up that important document when you need it? The answer, for many people, is a file-syncing service, and the one you choose may depend largely on how much space you need. IDriveSync (free to $149 per year for 500GB) may be a lesser-known offering, but it offers a lot of storage space for comparatively little money.

Two of the most well-known services Dropbox and SugarSync?both Editors' Choices at PCMag?are more elegant to use, but cost more when you pay for a plan with additional storage. Each of these three file-syncing services has a free version, as well, and I break out all the pricing scenarios and free space allotments on page 2 of this review.

For more services, see "The Best File-Syncing Services."

The Basics
IDriveSync is a free file-syncing program. Like most other file-syncing services, IDrive installs locally on any device where you want to access your files: computers, smartphones, and tablets. On your computers?yes, plural?the app either creates a new folder or asks you to select existing folders on your machine that will be synced. The default location on Windows is:?

Documents and Settings\username\IDriveSync.

Once you've set up the program, all files housed in that folder will back up to the file-syncing service's servers, and when you retrieve those files through your IDrive apps, such as the Android app, Web app, or iOS app, you'll always have the most recent version of the file automatically.

IDrive lets you store all kinds of file types, and, to make sure you understand that point, it establishes sub-folders automatically on installation for Documents, Music, Photos, and Video. An instructional PDF called Getting Started and a few sample files are also included.

After the app is installed, the quickest way to access settings and see how much of the allotted storage space you've used is through the pop-up menu from the system tray in Windows (see the slideshow) or top menu bar in Mac. From time to time, I encounter system tray menus that I couldn't read even if I had a magnifying glasses, but IDrive's uses an appropriate font and leaves ample room between text lines to actually be able to see what options exist.

Launching the Preferences window lets you get your hands on a few of the more advanced settings and features, like changing the location of the IDriveSync folder, pulling up activity logs, setting up proxy settings, and adjusting the bandwidth usage. The bandwidth settings aren't clearly labeled, however, until you hover over the slider bar and their full description pops up, so it's not clear what they do until you start to change them, a big no-no, because inexperienced users know better than to muck around with controls unless they understand what they do. (For the record, the two sliders are housed under "Network" and labeled "User Active" and "User Inactive," and both are set to 100 percent by default. Hover over the button to change them, and the pop-up descriptions say, "Select the bandwidth to be used when the system is in use/not in use.")

IDriveSync in Use
Using IDrive is mostly seamless because it works in the background quietly. Visual cues let you know the app is getting its job done. Files with a green circle and check mark indicated that they're synced, while a blue circle with white "recycle" lines indicates that syncing is in progress. These same icon conventions are used in most other file-syncing programs, too, so it's par for the course.

One feature I always like to see in file-syncing services is the ability to "right-click to sync" on any file, anywhere on your system. SugarSync set the bar for me with this feature, and IDrive tried to instate it, too, but to much less satisfactory results. When you right-click a file and choose to save it to an IDrive Sync folder, the system actually makes a copy of it and sends that copy to the IDrive folder, so your original file remains intact. The file you've now chosen to sync is completely out of sync because there are two versions of it! That's a huge, glaring problem, because it's counter-intuitive to what file-syncing services do, although the company behind IDriveSync assured me that it is what they intended.

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/ziffdavis/pcmag/~3/VidXlQCJCv0/0,2817,2408857,00.asp

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