iDrive is trying something a little different in cloud backups: Backing up your entire Google Workspace or Microsoft 365 storage, for only $20 per year per computer.

Confused? Then let’s, er, back up. IDrive is one of our most highly recommended cloud backup options, able to back up your PC to the cloud with either a free plan or paid options that go all the way to 20TB. It’s basically one of the only good independent cloud storage/backup providers that isn’t a major corporation like Google or Microsoft.

Due to be formally announced Thursday, IDrive will now offer unlimited cloud backup for both Google Workspace (Google Drive, Gmail, Calendar, and Contacts) and Office 365 (OneDrive, Exchange, SharePoint, and Teams), called Unlimited Cloud to Cloud Backup. What IDrive will do is back up all of your files in the Google or Microsoft cloud over to to IDrive as well. And if you pay for extra storage in either service, IDrive can accommodate all of those files.

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Why do this? It’s an additional layer of security for those who worry about cloud services going down and data being unable to accessed. It sounds a little far-fetched — until you remember that Western Digital’s cloud service was down for over a week. That’s why the “rule of three” exists: You should have your data stored in three places, just in case: a local copy and two backups. That’s what IDrive is offering.

IDrive’s Unlimited Cloud to Cloud Backup backs up data from the other clouds three times per day. It retains snapshots of previous versions, allowing you to restore your data from a given point in time — and not just all of it at once. You can seek out and restore individual files and folders, too. IDrive considers this service to be an add-on, meaning that you can attach it to existing IDrive plans. (You can also buy Unlimited Cloud to Cloud Backup as a standalone service.)

IDrive seems to be pitching this as a solution for individuals, families or small businesses, since a demonstration video showed a backup of a Microsoft cloud with about twenty different users. The only catch, if there is one, is that IDrive charges the $20 annual fee (or roughly $1.66 per month) per computer for backing up one service, Google Drive or Microsoft Office 365.

Author: Mark Hachman, Senior Editor

As PCWorld’s senior editor, Mark focuses on Microsoft news and chip technology, among other beats. He has formerly written for PCMag, BYTE, Slashdot, eWEEK, and ReadWrite.

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