ADrive Business Review

ADrive Business starts at $2.50 per month or $25 per year for 100 gigabytes (GB). That makes it an attractive possibility for smaller companies looking at business-grade cloud backup solutions. Overall, it's a straightforward product that focuses on file sharing and data storage in addition to backup. While it includes a sync client and support for popular data transfer protocols, it lacks support for Linux as well as some of the security and management features we like to see in a business backup platform, like encryption for data at rest. For those reasons, while it's worth a look for price conscious small businesses looking for a no-frills setup, it scores behind our Editors' Choice candidate in the business backup category, Arcserve UDP Cloud Direct.

As a straight business cloud storage solution, ADrive also represents a decent, low-cost solution. Support for a continuous synch client really helps here, though once again its lack of advanced management tools keeps it behind our Editors' Choices in that category, Dropbox Business and Egnyte Business. Its low starting price point scales depending on the number of users and the desired storage space, which means you could wind up paying considerably more than you see on the web site; only a call with ADrive sales will get you a firm number. A free 60-day trial is available on the company's website for evaluation purposes.

Getting Started With ADrive Business

ADrive Business offers a simple signup process as all that's needed is an email address and password. Once logged in, you can access an online file manager by clicking on "My Files." Alternatively, ADrive Business provides connection strings for a wide variety of file transfer protocols. While it's possible to route to your storage area without using the dedicated ADrive Business client, based on our testing, you'll want all of your users to download ADrive Desktop. This is the backup, sync, and remote drive client that works on Windows and OS X. For Linux users, FTP, Rsync, SCP, and SFTP are connectivity options but there's no native sync client beyond this. This means no administrative capability over such clients, either. Not a deal-breaker for many of the Penguin People but not much of a draw either.

In Windows, ADrive Desktop lets you map your ADrive storage resource as a Windows drive by using Web Distributed Authoring and Versioning (WebDAV). In this way, it works like any other networked drive. Alternatively, you can establish one or more sync folders that behave similarly to other cloud storage collaboration products such as Box (for Business) ($12.50 Per User Per Month - Editor's Choice. Free 30 Day Trial. at Dropbox Business) or Dropbox. They're synced on a user- or administrator-determined schedule and have two modes of operation. First, Basic mode ensures that, if you delete a file on your computer, it will be re-downloaded. This is the safest option. Conversely, the most familiar mode of operation will likely be Advanced mode, where files deleted on the desktop are also deleted in the cloud. Ultimately, this will be a policy decision your IT staff will likely make on behalf of your users.

Syncing and Backup

Sync conflicts are resolved interactively with a dialog box. Synchronization will stop until a decision is made on how to resolve the conflict. Many times, this is a welcome opportunity to correct a situation that couldn't otherwise be fixed via an automated or policy-based process. But, more often than not, it's just annoying. A simple file rename is the preferred route and it would be nice to see this in future iterations. ADrive Business also features an elegant backup app that works by using an incremental method only similar to MozyPro for Business ($12.50 Editor's Choice. Free 30 Day Trial. at Dropbox Business) .

The bonus of using ADrive Backup alongside a mapped or synced folder is that backed up folders aren't considered for deletion if they're removed from the PC. However, backup job configuration is limited. When creating a new job, the only path is to choose a folder. To make any changes to scheduling, the job must be edited after the fact. Scheduling can be set to run from every 15 minutes to once a month. In addition, a file type filter can be applied to exclude temporary and other unwanted files from the backup job. Recovery is a bit odd as well. Since ADrive Business is a file-sharing app under the hood, getting your data back is done by creating a sync folder. That works, but it's odd enough to stand out among the other apps reviewed here, and is not as straightforward as a simple backup restore operation.

Sharing and Collaboration

ADrive Business has a variety of sharing and collaboration methods. First, files can be shared internally by specifying collaborators. These can be added or removed at the folder or subfolder level so you can achieve a fair degree of granularity. Despite this, there isn't an option to define user groups. As such, users must be individually added or removed from folders.

In addition, files and entire folders can be shared publicly by clicking the "Share" action under a folder or a file's submenu. There are a number of nice options available here. You can specify a password and expiration date, and that way, you can constrain access to only intended individuals. As an added bonus, a download limit can be set so that the file can only be downloaded a certain number of times.

If the worst-case scenario happens and an important file is overwritten, ADrive Business does have a "File History Recovery" feature. It's somewhat disappointing, however, since it only maintains a two-day revision history and backups are only taken once per day (in addition to a Sunday snapshot). For users engaged in rapid editing, this isn't something that would replace a traditional versioning system but it could get you out of a pinch in some scenarios. But, in the event in which a file needed to be retrieved for legal reasons, this might not be the best option.

Online editing is also available by using Zoho technology, namely, Zoho Docs Standard . Microsoft Office files are supported and the app works well for them. However, many users will likely miss the comfort of working with true Office products. Still, if there is no other option, the functionality is there for those that need it.

Security

Unfortunately, ADrive Business only addresses half of the problem when it comes to data protection. Encryption in transit is fully supported via Secure Sockets Layer (SSL), which is good. But encryption at rest is lacking, which means that, for most of its life on ADrive Business' servers, your data won't be encrypted. Because of this, it would be a wise decision to use an additional product to encrypt files prior to transferring data to the service (though that means you'll be taking on a task that competing services will do for you). For this reason, security-conscious businesses may want to probe a bit deeper before committing to using ADrive Business. We also couldn't find any third-party validation for ADrive Business' security practices so, for really sensitive data storage, you'll likely want to seek other options.

Still, several secure transfer options are available, including FTP with TLS, Rsync, SCP, SFTP, and Web Distributed Authoring and Versioning (WebDAV). While WebDAV is arguably not a great option across the web due to its known security and stability issues, it remains convenient and is also the mechanism by which the mapped drive feature works.

Overall, ADrive Business has a lot of promise, but its lack of encryption at rest keeps it from being a major player. If this issue is solved, then it stands to be an excellent, low-cost option for small businesses that don't need the bells and whistles of a Box or Dropbox, just those that need a simple cloud backup option with file-sharing capabilities. Until then, an organization would seriously need to weigh the risks involved with storing unencrypted data on a remote system.

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