IDrive

Yes — this is IDrive's headline advantage. A single account backs up an unlimited number of computers, phones, tablets and servers into your storage quota for one annual payment, rather than paying per device like many rivals. That makes it especially cost-effective for households, freelancers and small businesses with several machines to protect. The only ceiling is your total storage allowance, not the device count — so pick a plan by how much data you need to store overall.

On price-per-terabyte, IDrive is one of the best deals in cloud backup, and the unlimited-device model stretches that value further for multi-machine setups. It also bundles features rivals charge extra for — versioning, snapshots, disk-image backup and Express shipping. The trade-offs: storage is capped rather than unlimited, so heavy users can outgrow a plan, and billing is annual only. Want predictable, low-cost backup across many devices? Excellent value. Need truly unlimited storage or monthly billing? Look at Backblaze.

Three things stand out. First, IDrive offers annual paid plans only — no month-to-month, and you commit up front. Second, the attractive first-year price renews higher in year two, which catches some users out. Third, reviewers frequently report slow backup and upload speeds on large data sets, and the file-selection and restore interface can feel fiddly. None of these undo the core value — cheap, feature-rich backup for unlimited devices — but factor in the annual commitment, the renewal price and the speed caveat.

IDrive uses encryption in transit and at rest and offers optional private, end-to-end encryption where you hold the key, so even IDrive can't read your data. Versioning and snapshots help you recover from ransomware or accidental changes by rolling back to earlier versions, and IDrive Express ships a physical drive for large initial backups or urgent restores. One caveat: with private-key encryption, keep that key safe — losing it means losing access, since there's no password recovery on that mode.

Households, freelancers, agencies and small-to-mid businesses needing affordable, reliable backup across many devices without paying per machine. It's ideal when you have a mix of computers, phones and even servers to protect and want one plan to cover them all, plus versioning and disk-image backup. It's less ideal if you need unlimited storage for a single machine, prefer monthly billing, or move very large data sets frequently where upload speed is critical. Match it to multi-device backup on a budget.