OpenDrive Review

Introduction

OpenDrive began about five years ago as a solution for individual users, and by keeping data management solutions attractive, simple and secure they acquired a large demand quickly. Their popular demand eventually moved them into the business-accessible sector, and more than a million personal users and 20,000 businesses worldwide currently call OpenDrive home for their precious data. OpenDrive’s quality and class of services is award winning. Among them are TopTenReview’s Silver Award in 2011 and 2012, the Excellence Award in 2011, Brothersoft Editor’s Choice, and Soft82’s prestigious 5 star awards.

OpenDrive offers multiple standard plans as well as custom ones, and they offer a fine customer support base. State of the art data centers compliant with SAS70 Type-II standards and the latest software security mechanisms exist to keep data locked away safe and sound, and quickly retrievable.

Plans & Pricing

OpenDrive has one free option for up to 5 GB, three tiered payment plans, starting at 100 GB, and a custom plan that allows price variation upon a sliding scale. There is a yearly pay option for all pay plans, but no discount exists for choosing this option.

Basic Plan @ Free of Charges: 5GB Storage, Max File Size 100MB, 1 User, 1GB/Day Bandwidth and 200KB/s Speed

Home Plan:

Monthly Home Plan @ $5.00/Month: 100GB Storage, Max File Size 1GB,  3 Users, 25GB/Day Bandwidth, Unlimited Speed and many other features

Yearly Home Plan @ $50.00/Year: 100GB Storage, Max File Size 1GB,  3 Users, 25GB/Day Bandwidth, Unlimited Speed and many other features

Office Plan:

Monthly Office Plan @ $15.00/Month: 500GB Storage, Max File Size 3GB, 5 Users, 100GB/Day Bandwidth, Unlimited Speed and many other features

Yearly Office Plan @ $150.00/Year: 500GB Storage, Max File Size 3GB, 5 Users, 100GB/Day Bandwidth, Unlimited Speed and many other features

Pro Plan:

Monthly Pro Plan @ $25.00/Month: 1TB Storage, Max File Size 5GB, 7 Users, 250GB/Day Bandwidth, Unlimited Speed and many other features

Yearly Pro Plan @ $250.00/Year: 1TB Storage, Max File Size 5GB, 7 Users, 250GB/Day Bandwidth, Unlimited Speed and many other features

Custom Plan @$ variable/Month & Year: Prices can be calculated through online calculator based on five major factors i.e. Account type, Storage, Bandwidth, Users, and File Size

Features

OpenDrive’s objective seems to be in providing a single file source in the cloud with the ability to access said data from multiple devices. This philosophy differs from the school of creating multiple copies across connected devices, or mirroring existing computer files. To achieve this single-point approach, OpenDrive creates a virtual file system either on your computer or mobile device, thus allowing the original to stay put. The following picture illustrates OpenDrive’s features and objectives.

Here’s an extensive list of features.

• Simple registration
• Competitive plans
• Cross-platform support of Windows, Mac, Android, iPhone and others
• Creation of virtual file system
• Onboard access to something like 17 useful programs like MS Excel, Word and PowerPoint regardless if the programs exist on your device.
• Simple data management interface
• Support for both web-based file management and client-software-based file management
• Complete solutions for both personal and business users
• Easy access of your files from anywhere in the world
• Website available in 13 popular languages
• Comprehensive solutions for music, docs, videos and other applications
• Efficient synchronizing mechanism through the configuration of management tasks
• Online file sharing through secure links embedded in the file-sharing system
• Support for hot-linking to download your files from social media or any other website
• Simple management of business data, files, available bandwidth, and storage capacity
• Support for multiple computers to backup and store the file in one account
• Options for sharing entire folders with coworkers or partners
• Useful alerts and tracking record of the files and folders shared with coworkers or anyone else
• Simple user management by administrators. Highly customizable user-privilege setting capability
• Options for creation of groups
• Allocation and demarcation of the resources to users on main account
• Options for branding of business names or logos, etc
• Branded email notifications to stakeholders
• Option for mapping your OpenDrive space on your own domain name
• Support for drag and drop uploading
• Free manual uploading of data  through hard disk or USB couriered to OpenDrive team
• Support for inter folder movement of files
• Support for uploading or migrating data from other operators
• Support for different levels of permissions; e.g.; private, password protected, controlled access or public access
• Capability of downloading through short cuts and URLs
• Live streaming and music playing online
• Support for selling files
• Detailed logs and statistics of user accounts
• Email notifications of user activities on OpenDrive sharing system
• High level of physical and logical security
• State of the art data centers in compliant with SAS70 Type-II standards and other such security and building standards
• High tech physical security and monitoring systems at data centers
• Encrypted data transfer and backup on servers; high level of encryption based on 128-AES protocol
• Secure connection 128-bit SSL and HIPPA certified
• IP-based access for users, ensuring no other IP can access those files
• Multiple-browser support
• Light-weight applications available for multiple operating systems
• Redundant network connections and highly secured data behind multiple firewalls
• Best network security policies based on ACLs, IDS, IPS etc
• Well known enterprise versions of MacAfee antivirus and anti-malware systems installed
• Wonderful support with 24×7 operation accessible by phone, email, TT systems, etc.
• Online tutorials, videos, how-to documents, and FAQs
• System Status and Activity Notifications are available on the support website
• Best tracking system for pending requests and support queries
• Well-defined legal and privacy policies available on the website

Security

Security is one of OpenDrive’s main concerns. Thus, their industrial-grade protection is a plus not only to business owners, but the average Joe gets to enjoy some pretty high tech data safety. Here are some highlights. .

Physical Security Measures:

• Highly secure buildings and security-system protection
• OpenDrive state of the art data centers are SAS70 Type-II compliant
• Highly secure access control through biometric and physical checking
• CCTV camera, regular monitoring and fire systems in place
• Redundant power and air conditioning systems are installed to keep the network 100% up

Logical Security Measures:

• Well defined and well-devised security policy
• Redundant configurations of network connections and security firewalls
• Implementation of IDS, IPS and ACLs according to predefined strict logical security policy
• Secure data transfer over 128bit SSL connection
• HIPAA certified
• Customized encryption of data while in rest on the servers
• Password protected and privileged level of file access
• Perfect password, user and group management policy
• Immediate email alerts to account administrators regarding user account activity
• Logged user activity and statistics
• Enterprise versions of MacAfee security software

Customer Service

OpenDrive provides answers to trouble in a number of different ways. First, there is an extensive Knowledge Base search engine available on the Support Center’s main page. If that should fail to resolve an issue, telephone and email support are available through live customer service reps.

Here are some customer support features offered to OpenDrive clients.

• 24/7 support
• Telephone support for paid customers
• Email & Trouble ticketing-based services answered within a few hours
• Knowledge-Base documents are available for immediate help through a search engine
• Deep pool of FAQs
• Documented solutions for routine issues regarding storage and online services
• Announcements and alerts about any change, outage or activity
• System Status notification available on the Support website for reference
• Community support forums
• Blog leads and discussions are available for help

The process (Sign-up & Install)

Sign up and installation are simple enough. Most anyone with a little computer knowledge should have no problem with OpenDrive’s operation. Here’s a lowdown on how it all works.

• Logon to OpenDrive.com and click on ‘Sign Up’

• Choose the plan that’s right for you, and fill in your personal information in the Sign Up fields
• Click ‘Sign Up’

• The account Home page is laid out simply, as shown below. The four main user interfaces from this page at the top are for file management (Files tab), user settings (User tab), sytem settings (Settings tab), and Applications.
• The page loads the Files tab by default, and directly under that are your file options. You can upload, download, set up a new directory, trash a file, or retrieve something from the web.

• First, let’s take a look at uploading files from your computer. There are two methods: drag and drop files from a source file to the OpenDrive upload field, or highlight the file(s) and click the Upload button.
• OpenDrive takes care of the rest

• To create a new folder, click the New button, and you’ll be presented with the following folder options

 

• Downloading is as easy it gets. Choose the file from your Root Directory (on the left side of the main interface page) and click the Download button. That’s it. OpenDrive sends downloads in zip form to your computer’s main Download folder.
• OpenDrive also allows file download and other file options by right-clicking the file and choosing your intended command from the subsequent popup

 

• To retrieve online data directly from a website to your OpenDrive backup account, click the Fetch button.
• You’ll be presented with a small popup window asking for the site’s URL
• Click Fetch

• To manage user accounts, next go to the Users Tab

• Click the addition (+) symbol located in front of Group on the top-left of the page for a new group – you will be presented with a popup window as shown in the following figure
• Fill in the name and description of the group, allocate resources, and then click Add. Your new group is added.

 

• To add a new user to the account, click New from the main User toolbar
• OpenDrive provides a highly customizable user platform for administrators. From exact allowable space and bandwidth allowed by a user, to individual file authorization, the interface is helpful to organizations seeking highly specialized access to its users.

 

• View users from the Account Users page
• You can do different activities with this user entry by clicking on the ‘Action’ button as shown in the following figure

• Next, clicking the account Settings tab will allow you to customize your account. Let’s take a look at the toolbar options
• First, the following figure gives you an overview of your current plan, which is found fittingly under the Plan tab

• Seceondly, change profile settings under the My Profile tab

 

• Branding is available only to paying customers, but it has some handy features onboard, such as choosing a company logo

 

• Payment Methods should be fairly self-explanatory to anyone who’s ever bought or subscribed to anything online. Enter your card number, etc.

• To use hotlinking, follow the instructions under the File Hotlinking tab. Terms and conditions apply.

• Follow account activity and overall usage statistics from the Activity Logs and Statistics tabs, respectively.

• OpenDrive offers an exciting feature for security control of your data on the basis of IPs – you can use certain IPs for mapping your users to access the data form while denying all other IPs for better security at IP level
• This function is available for paid customers only, and is illustrated in the following figure

• You can get additional resources in the form of commissions by referring others to OpenDrive

• Customer support is located under the Contact Us tab

Conclusion

If you are looking for a highly featured and secure online-backup and file-sharing service, OpenDrive should be a perfect match. OpenDrive evolved from a company tailored specifically to individuals into an all-encompassing one. Therefore, their interface had also evolved from the basics and therefore is unintimidating to work with. Recent security upgrades to the company also put OpenDrive at the top of reliability. Overall, OpenDrive is a very high-quality data backup and management platform that can be trusted to do what it’s supposed to. It’s possesses a level of user and security customization that many other providers lack. Highly recommended.