Livedrive online backup review: Elegant, fast, and a bit pricey - madrigalhiscon

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At a Glint

Expert's Rating

Pros

• Flawless frame-up and client interface
• Superb public presentation
• Syncing briefcase

Cons

• More pricy than most

Our Finding of fact

If there's much a thing equally elegant online backup, Livedrive is it. We sensed nary a demerit during apparatus OR operation, the software is moral and economical, and performance exceeded our expectations. Information technology's a bit pricey, but the peace that flawless implementation invokes is well worth it.

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Quite often, reviewing a merchandise is simply a matter of waiting for it to DO something wrong. Sometimes, the wait is minimal. Or, as is the pillowcase with Livedrive, IT's seemingly interminable—the "something wrong" just hasn't happened. The Livedrive node installed flawlessly, functions smoothly, and was quite a little faster than I predicted for a servicing supported across the Atlantic. Nice.

See how well information technology compares to the competition in our big online backup roundup.

Remark: For Thomas More about data backup, see our top-quality free backup software/services and the best Windows musical accompaniment software roundups.

Setup and features

Livedrive is distinct in its attention to detail. For exemplify, installation dialog text can oft appear so runty and unreadable happening my iMac's 5K show, merely Livedrive's renderings were perfectly legible. On the far side that, the apparatus overall suffered nary a hiccup, and I was up and running in rattling shortened order.

Care Carbonite Prophylactic, the Livedrive client wish automatically prize your most eventful data (i.e., the Documents, Pictures, Movies, etc. folders in Windows), and one time you log in to your invoice, get funding high the minute you give it the function-ahead. I chose to pare down down a little as I have a orotund amount of information that is already backed skyward. As you can see below, Livedrive makes information technology easy to pick out or deselect what you want. You can as wel skip this step all as Livedrive grabs the manifest folders to clog in any case.

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While Livedrive wish prime primary data connected its own, you May also select and deselect files and folders as necessary. This is the initial setup dialog. The substance abuser "centre" option pane is more compact

Backups are refreshed every hour, only you posterior change that frequency, as well as pick out the clock time of day backups begin. In the event you need to restore data, this action hindquarters be well accomplished using the node software American Samoa shown down the stairs, or you dismiss download the data via Livedrive's web portal.

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The Livedrive client's restore pane. You can double-click a folder icon or select Watch Files to see a folder's individual files and subfolders. This is one of the few instances of effective redundance (saphead-proofing) that I found in the software.

Livedrive's base pricing is reasonable at $9 a month for unlimited data backed up from a undivided PC. There's besides a Briefcase sync service (think iCloud, OneDrive, Dropbox, etc.) with a unstinted 2TB of space for $16 a calendar month, as well as a combination of both online backup and Briefcase for $25 a calendar month. The Briefcase options are rather expensive considering the aforementioned alternatives, or even online substitute competitor iDrive,  which offers syncing American Samoa part of its standard backup program.

For security, Livedrive uses conveyance level security department (TLS, the successor to the NSA-supported SSL) and two-factor in authentication. The service also ensures that information is distributed crosswise multiple locations and obfuscated sol it can't be linked to an individual account. Information technology also conforms with all EU privacy laws for Britain's continental brethren.

Performance

I was enjoyably surprised by the 50- to 60MBps upload charge per unit I got out of Livedrive. The fellowship's data storage facilities are in the United Kingdom so it's moving a ways from San Francisco, CA, U.S. where I reside. Of course, that speaks A much to continual improvements in internet substructure as the company's operations, but the bottom line is that you don't have to worry about backup speed as you might take at one time.

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This was the kickoff of an approximately 80GB backup, but the speed of 56MBps was maintained almost passim. Note that this is from San Francisco to the UK.

Nor set you have to worry about the accompaniment's impact on system carrying into action. Livedrive had backed up 34.5GB of a 250GB backup without my even noticing it. Backups that don't commove your computing day are nice.

Conclusion

Livedrive is just a tad expensive compared to the competition, but its unflawed setup, minimalist interface, and velvet-textured operation make this service greatly reassuring and hard to fault. When IT comes to mission-desperate operations, a bug-extricated experience makes for peace of brain. If you respect faultlessness, Livedrive is an excellent select for online backup.

Editor's note: Because online services are often repetitious, gaining new features and carrying out improvements over metre, this followup is subject to change in order to accurately reflect the current state of the service. Whatever changes to text or our terminal review verdict will be noted at the pinch of this article.

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Jon is a Juilliard-trained musician, past x86/6800 programmer, and long-lived-time (late 70s) computer enthusiast animation in the San Francisco Bay area. jjacobi@pcworld.com

Source: https://www.pcworld.com/article/394433/livedrive-online-backup-review.html

Posted by: madrigalhiscon.blogspot.com

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