At a Glance
Our Rating
Price:
- 15 Day Trial: $Free
- Home Edition: $4.95/month, $49.95/year. Get two months free with annual subscription.
- Home Plus Edition: $9.95/month, $99.95/year. Get two months free with annual subscription.
- Pro Edition: $34.95/month, $349.95/year. Get two months free with annual subscription.
- Pro Plus Edition: Starting from $99.95/month
Pros:
- If you remove files from your hard drive, they are still in your storage online.
- You can see all files as a drive.
- An easy to use application for controlling automatic backups.
Cons:
- Requires Dot Net 2.0 Framework.
- 1GB maximum individual file size (2GB for plus users).
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Full Review
ElephantDrive is an online backup service with the power of Amazon.com. This is a great partnership that enables those that need a backup service the chance to use a much needed service with a name known for great service as well as offering less expensive alternatives.
The unique service has a design unlike other backup services such as the Trunk Explorer, Elephant Desktop, and Trunk Drive. From individuals to corporations, ElephantDrive has a service that will save important data and files in case of viruses or other computer crashes. For home use and easy to use interface for beginners, the cost is only $4.95 per month or $49.95 per year. For small business with the capacity of storing information from 20 computers, the cost is $99.95 per month.
For a reliable online backup service, ElephantDrive allows users the ability for unlimited customizations along with backing up files that are open or locked, whereas many backup services do not offer backing up these files. This option however, if only available to the pro users.
Of course, security is one of the most important aspects when you are searching for an online backup service and ElephantDrive offers this along with separate private encryption key. You have the ability to use your own encryption key as well for added protection, however, if you lose this key, no one else will have the key and you will not be able to retrieve your files.
ElephantDrive uses the Dot Net 1.1 Framework, so you will need this on your computer in order to use the program. Once you have this installed, downloading and installing ElephantDrive is very simple. From your Elephant Desktop you will access your Elephant Trunk, which is your online storage. All files, photos, etc… can be uploaded and saved to ensure you do not lose these important documents or photos.
Restoring the files, back to your computer or to another computer is as easy as using the Elephant Desktop and clicking the restore button. The drag and drop feature is great for those without much knowledge of computer or for those that wish an easy to use way to restore or upload their files.
Features of ElephantDrive include the ability to perform daily, weekly, or monthly backups. The choice of encryption options. Restoring files in a breeze. ElephantDrive has file sharing capabilities as well as support for both Windows and Mac users.
ElephantDrive does offer a trial download before purchasing a monthly or yearly agreement, which helps those wishing to try out the program prior to making a commitment.
5 Comments
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.
Thanks Matt. I will update the article.
ElephantDrive sounds great for business backup. For my personal computers, I’ve been using SafeCopy, 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.
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.
Thanks for letting us all know. I will have to find time to take a look.