ElephantDrive Review

ElephantDrive at a Glance

Our Rating4 / 5 stars

Price:

Personal Plans

  • Lite Account 2GB: FREE
  • Personal 100 100GB: $9.95/month
  • Personal 250 250GB: $19.95/month
  • Personal 500 500GB: $39.95/month
  • Personal 750 750GB: $59.95/month
  • Personal 1TB: $85.95/month
  • Personal 2TB: $169.95/month
  • Click here to save 16% on ElephantDrive!

Business Plans

  • Starting at $25.00/month

ElephantDriveElephantDrive

InstallationInstallation starts with a visit to the ElephantDrive website and is as simple as a click to begin the download of their desktop client. Once the client is downloaded just open the installer and the installation begins.

Following the installation wizard should only take a few minutes. Once the application is installed you can launch the application and you can setup your ElephantDrive account. If you already have an ElephantDrive account you can enter that information. For this review I needed a new account. Then enter your email and password to create your new account and then you can pick a plan. ElephantDrive drive offers a 2GB free account, 25GB promo trial account and the option to subscribe to the service. For this review I choose the 2GB free account just to get a feel for the service again.

Once you have choosen your account you need to select a location for your ElephantDrive folder. I went with the default but you could change it if you wanted. Even though you have an ElephantDrive folder you can still backup files anywhere on your computer. The ElephantDrive setup will then give the the chance to see and overview of the service and what it offers.

I was able to create an account and have the software installed in under 5 minutes including the time it took to download the application. For a walk through of the ElephantDrive installation watch our video of the installation process below.

How to Install ElephantDrive Online Backup has been around since 2008 and previously relied on the .Net framework. In the last few years though  has moved on to a Java based desktop client and with a recent website redesign have come a long way from their earlier review here on OnlineBackupDeals.com.

Backing Up

Once you have ElephantDrive installed you have several options of how to start backing up your files.

The first backup method is easy, simply copy the files and folders to the Backup folder that was created when you installed ElephantDrive. All the folders and files in that folder will be automatically copied to the cloud.

The second method of including folder and files in a backup is to use Explorer and right click on folder you would like to backup and under the ElephantDrive option select “Backup this folder”. You can also use this method while browsing network shares and easily add folders and files from other computers on your network to your backup.

The third method of adding a backup job is to right click on the tray icon and selecting View->Backups and then add a new backup job. Using this method you can create your own backup sets to include only certain files from certain folders or from your entire computer. For example I easily created a backup set to scan my entire C: drive for jpg images and back them up.

The fourth method of adding a new backup job is through the web interface. You can actually manage all of your backup jobs through the web interface, so even if you are out of town and realize you forgot an important folder you can add that folder to be backed up remotely and later access it through the web.

You have lots of options to backup your data. With each backup job you can set specific schedules, archiving and how many versions of the files are kept. Lots of options for you to control how your backup is done.

Restoring

You do not have as many options to restore files as you do to back them up, but you can create a restore job in ElephantDrive that if interrupted will simply continue where it left off similar to a backup job. You can restore your files three ways that I found.

For files and folders that are backed up you can right click on the folder or file and view previous archived copies and previous versions and choose to restore them. Very useful for documents that you were working on and relised something has gone wrong and you need to go back in time.

You can also create a restore job, similar to a backup job. To do this you can right click on the tray icon and select View->Your Account where you can create the restore job. If you just need to download a couple of files you can also just selct them and choose to download them.

ElephantDrive also gives you the option to restore and download files through the online web interface. Here you can download the folders and files directly or create a restore job similar to the desktop client.

Other Features

?Web Interface – ElephantDrive has one of the best management web interfaces I have seen recently. You can access files, upload files, manage your backup and restore jobs and do pretty much everything you can do in the desktop client. If only all online backup services had web interfaces that were this capable.

Sharing – ElephantDrive offers easy sharing of files and folders with others. Just like backing up you have several options to be able to share files and folder with others.

Syncing – ElephantDrive offers the ability to sync folders and files between multiple computers that you have the service installed on. Everything in the “Everywhere” folder is synced between all the computers you have ElephantDrive installed.

Network Attached Storage / Network Drives – ElephantDrive allows you to easily add folders and files from your network attached storage devices, whether it is a mapped network drive of another computer on your network or your your NAS. ElephantDrive is also directly integrated with the following NAS devices: Netgear ReadyNAS, QNAP TurboNAS, Drobo NAS, Thecus NAS and many more. For those with home file servers this is a very nice added feature.

ElephantDrive as Network Drive – You can mount your ElephantDrive as a network drive on your computer for easy access to your backed up files. This is similar to what some other services offer but is mounted as a network drive.

Mobile – ElephantDrive has both an iOS app and an Android app available. The iOS app is available in the iTunes app store. The Android app is not available in Google Play but directly from ElephantDrive. This will mean you need to enable the option to install apps from unknown sources on your Android device.

OverallElephantDrive is an online backup service that offers an abundance of options and features that make it a strong competitor in the online backup and online storage service market. The web interface impressed me and I can see how that would be extremely useful for some people. ElephantDrive is certainly on par with the other services with similar features and is competitive in price for storage.

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Screenshots

Browse our screenshots of ElephantDrive.

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Comments

6 responses to “ElephantDrive Review”

  1. Nathan Avatar
    Nathan

    DO NOT USE THIS SOFTWARE!

    It is garbage! i have lost thousands of dollars worth of data to this pretend backup solution. After repeated stalls and only warning emails a week after the stalling of the backups happened that told me my data was being backed up. I asked, they replied they were updating their end which sometimes does this.
    This happened 4 times and after my complaint to them they simply switched off the warning email.
    If anyone wants their data safe do not use elephant drive! Also after repeated complaints, its been days and still no response. Thanks elephant drive, you’ve blank me.

    Worst and most unreliable backup system I’ve ever used.
    Use something else!

  2. Vince Avatar
    Vince

    Per Matt’s comment above, now the java version of the ElephantDrive backup program is available for general release. No more .NET dependencies (thank god).

    Not sure if it has anything to do with Java, but it runs much faster now.

    1. John Avatar

      Thanks for letting us all know. I will have to find time to take a look.

  3. Mark Avatar
    Mark

    ElephantDrive sounds great for business backup. For my personal computers, I’ve been using SafeCopy, http://www.safecopybackup.com. In particular, I was able to backup USB drives, share files and backup both my Mac and PC with one account. I’m very happy with it.

  4. Matt Avatar
    Matt

    I noticed the review says that you need the .NET Framework 1.1. This is actually a little dated – now you need .NET 2.0, but there is another option. They have a beta version of the ElephantDrive software written in Java, so you don’t need any .NET at all.

    1. John Avatar

      Thanks Matt. I will update the article.

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