IDrive is a very powerful online tool that can be used to backup your data for free or for a very inexpensive cost. What I will show you in this article is how to signup for IDrive install their software and configure your backup. It is very easy and will take very little time and I will post a video as well showing you how to install and setup IDrive.

Lets start with signing up for IDrive and at the current time of this article they will give you 2 gigs of backup storage for free, personally that is all that I need. First click on one of the IDrive links to go to their website. Click on the Sign up button under the IDrive Basic account.

Next you will need to fill out all of the information on the next page to create your free IDrive basic account. Notice that you DO NOT  have to put a credit card number in. Alot of services offer free accounts but as for your Credit Card so that they can bill you immediatly when the free trial is up or you start using their paid services. IDrive will not ask for a credit card number until you plan to use their paid services.

Now that you have your free account it is time to download the software and get your backup running. If you weren’t taken to the download site already simply goto the Download link at the top of the IDrive page and select “IDrive Online Backup Classic” download from the right hand side of the screen.

Click Run and the program will be downloaded and executed for you. Accept all of the default and the IDrive backup program will be installed quickly to your computer. After the install is complete the IDrive backup program will be executed and will ask you to put in your email address and your password. These are the credentials that you setup earilier when you were registered with IDrive, make sure that Reconnect at login and Remeber username / password is checked. 

Once you log in it will ask if you want default encrytption or to create your on key, I would recommend using the default but fell free to create your own if you want to. IDrive will give you a quick little help picture showing you where everything is in the backup program and then let you explore on your own. You should see that you are on the backup tab and “Desktop”, “Music”, “Pictures”, “Videos”, and “Documents” is selected by default to be backed up. I don’t know about you but I have a lot more than 2 gigs of information in those places so I would deselect those folders and just select the folders that you want. IDrive also lets you know how much you will be backing up in real time as you select which folders you want to include, so keep a eye out and make sure that you don’t go over your 2 gig limit, or upgrade to an enexpensive plan that gives you more storage space.

Once you have selected everything that you want to backup you will notice that there are three little buttons at the bottom of the screen. “Backup Now” “Schedule Backup” and “Enable Continuous Backup”.

Backup Now does just that is start the backup right now and begins saving all of your selected information to IDrive’s servers. Schedule Backup is what I would recommend everyone using. This allows you to setup a schedule of when to backup the information you have selected and the common setting is normally 7 days a week around 2:00 am or 3:00 am because this is most likly the time that no one is using the computer and the backup will go faster. Enable continuous backup is an option that comes with IDrive and it allows your files to be backedup continously as you modify them. The continuous backup setting seems to be the best option but becareful with it because it can slow down your network because it is constantly sending information to the internet. Also if you are working on a file and want to go back to a previous revision you might be at a lose because IDrive will only have the current version.

I hope that this article has been informative to you and will help you setup your free IDrive account. If you have and problems with configuring IDrive or installing IDrive I will be more than happy to try and help you solve your problems.