Further to my post a couple of months back on problems at Xdrive , seems the company recently acquired by AOL isn’t out of the woods yet. Two readers posted comments in the past 24 hours: One wrote
Xdrive – one of the worst services I have had of any web-based provider. I couldn’t sign up for the automated free trial, and after leaving messages there eventually someone called back to take my credit card. Since then, I have been unable to login to the account on a number of occasions, and tech support has yet to call me back. thumbs down for xdrive!
While another, apparently unconnected user wrote:
I’ve been hosed for the past 7 days as well. Which is too bad – because the service really is cool. But ANY BACKUP company that will just STICK IT to me for 7 days… doesn’t get the point of a backup company. I’ve only been able to log in intermittently, and when I’ve done so I’ve seen that I’ve lost tons of data/files/etc. I work with software – so I know problems can happen – but they’ve gone completely over the top.
I’m going to ask AOL/Xdrive for comment on this. Last time the company talked of being “in the process of making significant upgrades to its technology infrastructure that will greatly enhance user experience”. If the comments above are anything to go by, it doesn’t sound like much of an enhanced user experience. Whether or not there are two months between the two lapses in service, backup is supposed to be backup, and you can’t have it going down.
In the meantime, does anyone have suggestions for alternatives? I’ve tried to list a few here, but there must be more.
Not really an Xdrive-type backup solution, but now that FolderShare (recently purchased by Microsoft) is free (I wonder how the poor folks at BeInSync are feeling right about now?) it might offer a different solution: you can sync files between computers in different locations and accomplish something similar to backing up to Xdrive.
Jeremy, I agree with you that the Xdrive/AOL combination is not performing. You were asking for other options–and I’ve seen people mention streamload–but no one has mentioned http://www.shadowstorage.com. I stumbled across one of their ads on Google. They offer 5GB storage for $9.49/mo. with unlimited bandwidth. That’s what I’m using now, it’s the Personal plan; plus I upgraded to get a toll-free fax number. It’s fully integrated into my account. Nice. More sophisticated users can choose from Professional and Group plans. The interface is fast and I haven’t had problems logging in or uploading. Sharing files with encrypted links is a breeze. They may be the best kept secret in the online storage market.
-Darrell
I’ve been trying to sign up with Xdrive for the last two days and their site is repeatedly down. I thought that maybe it was just a fluke, yesterday. But today it worked fine for a while and now the site is down again. This is not something I look for in a backup storage company.
Arghhhh Xdrive support!!! Brand new account, could not get access to my account. Their interface kept throwing an error. 5 emails went unresponded to. 4 Support calls went unanswered over 2 days. 2 techs I did speak to said they would call me back as they needed to research my problem… err no calls back. If you are looking for reliable online storage, I strongly suggest you avoid Xdrive they are totally unreliable and offer zero support.
It seems to be a H O A X
1) They will offer a cool service that works fine at first.
2) They will get your credit card number and start billing.
3) The service will stop normal functioning, i.e. it does not work as it did.
4) You can’t cancel your account without a war.
5) Result. You have paid six months to a year and you have received nothing.
Sue them, please.