IDrive Review

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27 responses to “IDrive Review”

1. 

   P Mason

   After 5 months of trying to get my data back down to their limit I’ve given up. This company is a definite scam and will charge your credit card every month using data overage as an excuse. I did a charge-back on my CC, I’m done with these people!

   Reply
2. 

   RG

   iDrive billing practices are unfair and mean; I had to go through my credit card billing dispute process to get refunded as the Support Supervisor said my refund request was denied because the account was not cancelled within 15 days of its creation (I had been a client for years!!).

   Stay clear from idrive

   Reply
3. 

   Steve Winter

   I am astounded at how pathetic and worthless IDrive tech support is. My system has not backed up for weeks and all I get is inattention and then worthless garbage when they finally respond.

   Idrive is pathetic.

   Reply
4. 

   Bobbi

   Wow! I will be sure to steer clear of I-Drive. I have also been hyper-observed & criticized, then fired “for helping too much”. I am also in my 50’s.

   Reply
5. 

   ITInsider Advise

   I have to throw in my 2 cents worth here and give some facts known to me about Pro-Softnet Corp. Their products I-drive and I-backup and corporate environment. I worked there for about a year and a half as a Tech support agent.

   My review of their software is good it works. I-drive and I-backup work fine. The usage meter in the application is not real time and will report low usage when in reality you could be over the limit on the real time web interface. So use caution here monitor your backups and always check the web interface for accurate space usage.

   If the SW doesn’t run or quits running its environmental. The revamped interface of I-Drive is very poor pretty but functionally a poor design. The previous interface most all controls were visible upon opening the Software or Web interface. The new 6.0 release requires extra mouse clicks everywhere through it with giant drop downs, makes it very difficult to navigate.

   The technology is nothing new they are using HTTPs to move your data they no longer support FTP. All in all the software for both products will backup your data though it does require constant monitoring its just like tape backup. You can have either product I-Drive or IBackup send you a e-mail alert on the completion of your scheduled backup. Reporting is typical log file you need some basic IT knowledge to interpret.

   One thing you need to be aware of for both products. Read the user agreement! I-Drive and I-backup have a no refund policy! I have personalty taken calls from a customer with 2000+ dollar overage charge pro Softnet will not discuss or refund!

   The product has a “feature” that it never deletes data form the cloud. You have to do it! If you have a user that renames or moves a large folder its seen as new data and will back it up again and if your not monitoring it, you could be put out of business as I was told by one customer. He could not make his payroll because of the automatic withdrawal of 2000 dollars from his account when he was expecting Ibackup account of 9.95 per month.

   Now here some inside information to know about me and this company.

   I am/was a systems consultant with over 30+ more to the + side years experience and a spotless work record.

   I had badly broken my leg at 55 and had major surgery I was down hard and out of work a year learning to walk again lost a lot of weight. In the IT business today being over 50 is death. I know this from years of experience having to follow these unspoken HR policy’s. So after about 8 months trying to replace my 6 figures and draining my assets I was forced to lower my sights to get back in the game. Even this was going to be a challenge to get any job because of my age.

   I saw a local ad for a support agent for 12 to 15 an hour working for I-Drive. This seemed a position I could excel at low stress no travel and be fantastic opportunity for for me to get get healthy and show my stuff.

   I saw this as getting an opportunity to get in with a still small company that will enjoy what I have experienced before in my carrier, the rapid growth extremely high profitability of development and the rewards that have always come with being at the right place at the right time working for an American company. This was a opportunity I was excited about.

   Pro Softnet I-drive I-Backup is a company with less than 25 US based employes and boasting over 1 million customers at a min of 5 dollars a month + overage charges.

   Wow! I thought this is a opportunity I have enjoyed before in my carrier. Where even the receptionist is respected with a little slice of the large pie, rapid growth promotions bonus, stock. All the things that American companies reward those who got them there with. I really was excited looking at it from the outside.

   Here is the reality of Pro Softnet.

   I was interviewed and hired by a young 30 something manager Justin Aucoin, He was a Game tester prior to Managing for Pro Softnet. He most likely did not realize the cost to hire an older employee. I think he has been advised now of his mistake.

   We got along in the interview and I passed all the technical and personality tests I had to take. Very shortly after being hired I was shocked to find out the position was with no paid holidays no vacation at all no personal days nothing. My fault I should have asked but my excuse is never before in my experience did I ever not have basic week vacation after a year or personal days ever. My son working at Staples had vacation accrual.

   To HR’s credit an me bringing the issue up along with the other agents that they should offer what even fast food offers. Panki (HR) talked Ragu (owner) into offering the accrual of 6 personal days a year. They did this May 1st 2013. And they do provide Kaiser health insurance at no cost to the employee but 30 dollars a visit and a 3500 dollar deductible at 12 to 15 an hour. No paid time off hard to use the insurance.

   I found this policy to be kind of cheep for such a profitable company but they had not enjoyed my skill set yet and my confidence was high until I started to see how the company was operating.

   All the tech support agents are instructed to lie to the customers on very important issues.

   The first lie is they can not see your data. They can see your files and the content all support agents can. If you do not select the personal encryption key your data is viewable to anyone with the password to your account. Next is your credit card information, it is visible to all agents. The card numbers are not hidden. The CRM system they use is junk written in house and is almost not operable taking at times several minutes to recall a record. And to create one is cutting and pasting duplicating information all over the ticket very cumbersome, real junk. The next lie is if you lose your encryption key they can not recover it. They can but will not apply the resources to doing it. This has caused customer data loss to people who have had a disaster lost their encryption key and are left unable to restore their data. Think about that you opened an account 2 years ago and placed that key somewhere and now need your data or your out of business. Well your out of business they will not help you. Now that’s caring for your customers! The next lie is multiple data centers, all support tech are instructed to advise customers of multiple data centers. Their is only one data center in the San Fernando Valley. They lease space their and own their own servers. The point here is they are instructing their agents to lie to you. In my 30+ years I have seen some dirt but this really is bad and the orders come from above.

   I found it very strange that in such a small company I never was introduced to or even talked to the owner Ragu in a year and a half. Not even a good morning in passing. odd? Well for American company yes. I guess though not in an Indian company.

   The office has two sides one side is all Indian H-1b imports Ragu brings into the country from India unable to find American developers. lol The office is “the cast system” best I can figure, there is little communication between the groups at all. They will release new versions and the American agents are not told about it or even involved in beta testing. I saw no beta or any testing. Like I said I never met Ragu in a year and a half and never interacted with the H1-B’s.

   I soon realized that Ragu is Indian and his culture does not mix between the cast and Americans are the lowest cast at Pro Softnet. I did feel very slighted by not ever being introduced to Ragu on my hire or ever in such a small company. To me unheard of. But I have found out from persons I can not name his ego is unmatched.

   Being 57 and been around the corporate block a few times I was very happy just to get a job. Knowing from experience in small development firms, early on I asked Panki (HR) what it cost to add me to their health insurance she rolled her eyes as if to say what I already knew it cost plenty. This did worry me because I know of instances and have been involved with small company management wanting to find reason to get rid of employes who’s health, age issues cause premiums to go way up. But my 90 day probation passes without a issue.

   To make a long story short My 6 month review was not at all what I expected being what skills I brought to the table and how hard I was applying myself to the job I was very disappointed in my review but I did get a 50 cent raise high technical marks.

   I felt I was not recognized at all for the excellent support I was providing their customers. My management has little technical knowledge to be able to know how well I was doing. Managements (Justin) main concern was not in providing good technical support or customer service. It was making sure the call tickets created for each call were “pretty” with the optional – between customer name and product not a space but a dash and its not optional and we don’t give refunds is the mantra.

   My one year review well I guess Ragu got the medical insurance bill. lol, I know at my age I had to dot the eyes and cross the tees. I was always early and had to have had the best attendance record of any employee there and you know when you are doing a good job and I was.

   Each day I felt I had given my best and had personal satisfaction of such when I went home. Many unrecognized thanks from customers. I worked the shift none of the others wanted hoping to add to my value the 5:45am to 2:15pm.

   My one year review was ridiculous all poor. I did not receive a raise I was written up for a call from a sales partner that I told how to retrieve his records instead of doing it for him. Something I heard other agents do on a daily basis.

   I was allowed a comment and I completely disagreed with the review. I knew I was doomed then they only give reviews like that to people so to dot their I’s and cross their T’s they were making a case. I was disgusted!

   I was singled out from then on and constantly monitored and second guessed. I could do no right. The stress was unbearable. Technical issues they could not challenge me on but became really really picky issues non issues. This had a emotional toll on me, desperate to keep my job at 57. I would return from my break (on time) and here called out to me “Keith your late”, I am? How long? a one min. I’m sorry. I would get chats from other agent saying “their watching you like a hawk” Yes it was unbelievable stress. Was this done to others? NO. Just me. No one was ever fired while I was working there. I did see one agent be written up for commng in late consistently but the other that that no one was put through what I was put through.

   Needless to say I was for the first time in my life fired Thursday June 13th 2013, My resume completely ruined, my reputation and resume damaged carrier now ruined.

   What was I fired for? Out of the blue “To many customer complaints!” YOUR KIDDING RIGHT? No Justin was not kidding. Not once from when I started did I ever hear any concern or acknowledgement of customer complaints being blamed on the agents. How can you when you tell the agent to say.

   “I’m sorry sir we do not give refunds.” And when I tell you there is nothing I can do or will do, what do you do what do you say? Then I refuse to transfer you to someone else. Restating over and over “Im sorry sir by the user agreement sir their is NO refunds! Yea I’d say that’s rude but that has nothing to do with me.( management orders ) The manager doesn’t want to deal with a refund Ragu will not make anyhow. We were told not to transfer unless the customer will not give up asking for a manager. And if I did transfer one I would be second guessed and told how I could have avoided it in the future. OMG! I could not go to management with any issue that I was not told how I did it wrong and could have handled it without involving management.

   I know they have many many complaints with a no refund policy and the agents who enforce it.

   Was I sympathetic to the customer? Personally yes but by contract (user agreement) No refunds! I agree that’s rude and a poor policy. I would have complained too but this is the job I was asked to do.

   I was fired for following company policy. The data base was searched and 4 tickets other agents created over time with the customer calling back mad at me my name written in the ticket saying I was rude.

   Customers I refused a refund too, the ticket saying the customer said I was rude and uncaring. The customers second call did not get them a refund but the customers comments were noted by the agent and used to fire me.

   This was an obvious excuse, they know why the customers are mad. Like I said you know when your doing a good job and I was doing a real good job everything they wanted, plus my best advanced technical skills and experience. I was not fired because of complaints I was told the order came from above.

   Either the medical cost or I just did not fit in with the 20-30 something group. I don’t know I just know I was abused and treated very unfairly. Really devastated me emotionally as you can see by the time I have spent on this post.

   In conclusion I would hope people will see this was written from my heart and true. Avoid doing business with someone of such low moral character, greedy elitist attitude (cast system) Nationalistic to India not America. Interviewing Americans just to qualify another corporate welfare H1-B.

   To hire Americans only to put an American voice to what many Americans want to avoid doing business with an outsourced non-American company. No Americans developers at all Americans are only good for the Phones.

   Never in my life have I ever been treated so badly. or worked for a business run like I-Drive I-Backup is operated. Really not a quality human being.

   As I was walking out Justin said to me “if I had a sql or exchange position I would hire you your technical skills are excellent. I though this was really odd because the week before they announced a new position US based position for SQL Exchange I sent my resume to to apply for that job. What do you want to bet they cant find an American and have to get another H1-B into the country.

   The people who work there are good people all the techs Panki in HR. Good people and as I was told by to remain unnamed, “they were sorry just following orders”. I forgive them, I understand there position I have been there before too.

   So there it is my experience there at Pro Softnet. Corporation.

   Use your own judgment.

   Thanks for reading:)

   Reply
   1. 

      ITInsider Advise II

      As a current employee of Pro Softnet Corp, I can verify a few things here.

      About the Software

      1. Overages are indeed true. The company advertises a true archive service, which is great, but users must be very aware of these overages and watch their account like a hawk. The company advertises incremental backups so if the file structure is changed, your data will be backed up in it’s entirety due to the new location.

      The customer service manager previously mentioned is extremely anti-customer service and is loathe to give any refunds so getting a refund for an overage fee is basically impossible.

      2. Employees of the company have traditionally had access to your data if you did not encrypt. The company has made some improvements and have recently begun blocking password access to employees of the company. But, prior to this very recent change, passwords were stored in clear text and easily obtainable by any employee of the company.

      3. Personal encryption key. This is not available to employees of the company. This is your ultimate security against any prying eyes. But, if you forgot your key, you’re screwed out of your data.

      4. The backend technology is antiquated. They do not use any distributed file system so if the particular physical server holding your data goes down, you do not have access to your data. The company does have a mirrored backup process but the backup unit is physically next to it’s production unit. There are no redundant backups or off-site backup of your data. Production and backup devices co-exist at the same data center location. I can confirm that the company uses multiple data centers throughout California but they are all public data centers. The company does not own any data centers.

      About the Company

      1. The in-house American support staff are not fully trained on how to provide 100% support and service to customers. This is done by design. They are there to offer “lite” support and handle billing/sales issues.

      If your issue requires real support, you are told to go to live chat on the web site which is nothing more than Indian employees (from the owner’s other company based in India), who (very badly) provide support through chat. They do have remote options where they will connect to a customer’s computer, but they only do it on their time (i.e. Indian time) so, as an American looking for service, you have to wait until the late evening/middle of the night to receive remote support.

      2. The owner, Raghu, does not give any indication that he cares about his employees who are not developers or other high level salaried workers. Hourly employees are basically ignored and are treated like they don’t exist. He does not understand what it means to keep his employees moralized and happy.

      3. Job listings for development are mostly faked. They will post job listings in our break room and maybe Craigslist just because, by law, they have to. But, ultimately, that job will go to an Indian who is brought over from the owner’s other company in India.

      4. Until very recently, hourly employees did not have any sick pay or any paid time off benefits. The company is closed for multiple holidays throughout the year and hourly employees must used their accumulated hours to make up those days. Salaried employees get paid for all holidays.

      5. The company is advertising with Rush Limbaugh.

      6. The company freely uses pirated copies of Windows in their office. I also heard from the IT department that while the company has built it’s success off of CentOS, they have never donated a single penny to the CentOS folks.

      About the Disgruntled Employee, ITInsider Advise

      All I know about this guy is that he had a very rough voice from too many years of smoking cigarettes. He’s one of those guys who always reeked of cigarette smoke. A word of advice to you, if you want to fit in, please come to work smelling clean. I can’t speak of his performance on the phone but he was a big complainer and conspiracy theorist. Most of of the points he made about the company are valid though.

      All I can personally say is that if you’re an American, especially if you heard about this company via Rush Limbaugh, please know that this is a company run by an Indian who is only based here in California because his market is in the USA. But, like what has been mentioned before, his American employees are definitely in a lower “caste” within the company. He doesn’t really care about the bigger picture of things and is totally insensitive to a Western work place environment. After several years of service, I am doing everything I can to find a job at a company who knows how to treat their employees right.

      Reply
6. 

   Booon

   Idrive the only one can backup on iphone,ipad, andriod.

   The others can view/read only.

   my first choice is dropbox but very expensive.

   Idrive is cheapest and work in real life.

   btw, there are some bugs in program v6.

   Crashplan is hard to use. software it very bad.

   Reply
7. 

   Warren

   After 2 years with SpiderOak (2010-2012) the new software upgrades would no longer work on my old Mac and problems kept coming up. Support was not. So a year ago I checked out the available services again. I decided to try iDrive as they had new software and recent reviews looked better.

   iDrive has been good this time around. I used it on my old G5 Mac for about 10 months, then moved to a new Mac Mini. iDrive has nice new software for the Intel Macs. The new Mac software has a cleaner interface and is easier to use.

   I decided to start fresh with the new MacMini. Uploads with “Bandwidth Throttle” set to 100% have been fast, with 20GB taking about 12 hours(Comcast).

   My only complaint is that reporting is not great. The software does not provide a list of incremental uploads when executing scheduled backups.

   **** 4/5 stars

   Reply
8. 

   jean

   WATCH OUT! your “free” trial is not really free if you decide to try an upgrade. After using idrive for a few months I decided to upgrade for more space, even after when reaching the 5gb the software sent my pc into a frenzy. I upgraded and also receive new software (the old software is also used by many other backup solutions, hardly unique but same flaws) I deleted the old idrive and removed the software and installed the new version. Started the backup and it would never complete. It would hang around 37-45% and not go any further. After realizing they used canned software, the issue when reaching the limit and freezing my pc, and the new software not backing up beyond 37-45% (only had to back up 7gb) I decided that within 12 hours of purchase I wanted a refund. Guess what!? They say that you are only eligible for a refund from the time you start your free trial! So after 15day of a free trial and on day 16 you decide to upgrade for more space but it doesn’t work. TOO BAD! NO REFUND! They say it’s in the small print. I call it deceptive marketing.

   Reply
9. 

   Tom Debenham

   Idrive – installed two days ago, and have been backing up continuously since.

   So far only 5Gb……

   Oh dear, will be a long wait to get my 33Gb folders safe.

   I use gotomypc for other purposes and transferring folders is MUCH faster (13 hours to do 10Gb).

   Reply
10. 

    Michael

    A few days ago I started using/testing iDrive having dumped CrashPlan due to its demands on RAM and CPU resource. I’ve got about 425GB to upload and I’m maxing out my 5 Mbit uplink – good stuff.

    This morning I did a test restore, stopped all backups and anything else using my internet connection. I tried to download a 142MB file over my 50 Mbit downlink but all I could achieve was around 3 Mbit.

    How do others in UK find the restore speed?

    Reply