Backblaze backs up one computer with no storage limit; IDrive backs up many devices into a capped pot. We compare prices as of October 2026, version history, external drives, phones and restores, and tell you which to pick.
Cloud & Security
Last updated: October 2026.
You have read about the 3-2-1 backup rule, you have a copy of your files on an external drive, and now you need the hard part: a copy somewhere else, away from your desk, your house and your burglar. Search for “cloud backup” and two names come up again and again: Backblaze and IDrive.
They look similar from a distance. Both run quietly in the background, both encrypt your files and both cost around a hundred dollars a year. But they are built on opposite ideas. Backblaze backs up one computer with no storage limit. IDrive backs up lots of devices into one pot of storage with a cap. Which idea suits you depends on what you own and how much of it there is.
This guide compares Backblaze Personal Backup and IDrive Personal on price, version history, external drives, phones, restores, privacy and day-to-day use, using each company’s own pricing pages and help documents as of October 2026.
Short answer: If you have one Mac or Windows computer and want backup you set up once and forget, choose Backblaze: $99 a year, unlimited data, very little to configure. If you have several computers, a phone you want backed up, or Linux, choose IDrive: one 5 TB plan covers all of them for less than Backblaze charges for two computers. Either one gives you the off-site copy the 3-2-1 rule asks for.
| Backblaze Personal Backup | IDrive Personal | |
|---|---|---|
| Price (as of Oct 2026) | $9/month, $99/year or $189 for two years, per computer | 5 TB: $11.99/month or $119.88/year ($83.88 for the first year for new customers) |
| Storage | Unlimited | 5 TB (larger plans up to 100 TB) |
| Devices | One computer per licence | Multiple computers, phones and tablets, one user |
| Computers supported | Mac and Windows | Mac, Windows and Linux |
| Phone backup | No (apps can view and download your backed-up files) | Yes, iPhone, iPad and Android |
| Version history | 30 days by default, one year at no extra cost, Forever for a storage fee | Up to 30 previous versions of each file |
| Deleted files | Kept for your version history period, then removed | Kept until you delete them or run Archive Cleanup |
| External drives | Included, but must be reconnected at least every 30 days on default settings | Included, no reconnect deadline |
| Restore by post | USB hard drive up to 8 TB, $189, refunded if you send it back within 30 days | IDrive Express: $99.50 per restore (one free Express backup a year) |
| Private encryption key | Optional | Optional |
| Free option | Free trial only | IDrive Basic: 10 GB free |
Everything else follows from this. A Backblaze licence covers one computer and every file on it, plus external drives plugged into it, with no storage limit. Back up a 300 GB laptop or a 12 TB video workstation and the price is the same. Add a second computer and you pay again.
IDrive Personal sells you a storage allowance instead. The entry plan gives one user 5 TB to share between as many computers, phones and tablets as you like. That is generous for most households: a typical laptop with documents and photos might use a few hundred gigabytes. But it is a ceiling. If you go over it, IDrive’s pricing page says you may be charged an overuse fee of $0.25 per GB per month until you upgrade to the 10 TB plan or larger.
So the question to ask yourself is not “which is cheaper?” but “how many devices do I have, and how much data is on them?”
All prices are in US dollars, as listed on the official Backblaze pricing page and IDrive pricing page in October 2026. Local sales tax or VAT may be added.
Watch the renewal. IDrive’s discounts apply to the first year only; IDrive’s own note says standard pricing applies from the second year. Over time a single computer costs a little more on IDrive ($119.88 a year) than on Backblaze ($99). The picture flips as soon as you add devices.
Cost
What you pay in year one
Yearly billing, US dollars, as of October 2026
IDrive’s first-year price is a new-customer discount; it renews at $119.88 a year. Backblaze charges per computer. Sources: official pricing pages, October 2026.
Version history is what saves you when you overwrite a file by mistake, or when ransomware scrambles your documents and the scrambled copies get backed up. It is also where the two services differ most quietly.
Backblaze keeps old versions and deleted files for 30 days by default. In its help pages, Backblaze says that after 30 days “the updated, changed, or deleted versions are removed from your Backblaze backup”. You can switch to one-year version history, which Backblaze has included at no extra cost since October 2023, or to Forever, where versions older than a year are charged at $0.006 per GB per month (the rate Backblaze announced in 2023). Our advice: switch to one year on day one. It costs nothing and turns a one-month safety net into a twelve-month one. It is not retroactive, so do it before you need it.
IDrive keeps up to 30 previous versions of each file. More importantly, it does not delete files from your backup just because you deleted them from your computer. IDrive’s help pages say it does not remove data from your account automatically; that only happens if you delete it yourself or run its Archive Cleanup tool. When you do delete something from your IDrive account, it sits in the Trash for 30 days before going for good.
The trade-off: IDrive’s approach is closer to an archive, which is great for “I deleted that folder two years ago”. But everything you keep counts against your 5 TB. Backblaze’s approach is tidier and unlimited, but anything you delete eventually disappears from the backup too.
Backblaze users: sign in on the Backblaze website, choose Computer Backup > Overview, find the Version History field for your computer and switch it from 30 days to one year, then click Update. It is free, it is set per computer, and it also protects external drives you forget to plug in (see below).
Both services back up external drives that are plugged directly into your computer. The difference is what happens when you unplug them.
On default settings, Backblaze asks you to reconnect an external drive at least once every 30 days. It sends missing-drive alerts at 14, 21 and 28 days. Leave it unplugged longer and the backed-up copy of that drive may be removed. With one-year version history switched on, Backblaze says it keeps a disconnected drive’s data for up to a year instead. Backblaze also requires drives to be directly connected, so a network drive or NAS box is not covered by Personal Backup.
IDrive has no reconnect deadline for external drives, and it can back up Synology and QNAP NAS devices with an add-on. If you keep an archive drive in a drawer and only plug it in a few times a year, IDrive is the more forgiving choice.
If you use Backblaze to protect an external drive that is the only other copy of your old photos, do not leave it unplugged for months on default settings. Either switch to one-year version history or plug it in at least once a month.
This one is simple. Backblaze Personal Backup is for Mac and Windows computers only. Its iPhone and Android apps let you browse and download files backed up from your computer, but they do not back up the phone itself.
IDrive backs up PCs, Macs, Linux machines, iPhones, iPads and Android devices into the same account. If you want one service that also protects the photos on your phone, IDrive does it and Backblaze does not. Many people already have phone photos covered by iCloud or Google Photos, though, so check whether this actually matters to you.
A backup is only as good as the restore. Both offer two ways.
Backblaze prepares a zip file from its website, up to 500 GB per request, and you can prepare several at once. It also has a dedicated restore app. IDrive lets you restore from its desktop app, its website or its mobile apps, file by file or in bulk.
For big restores, waiting for terabytes to download can take days. Backblaze will post you a USB hard drive with up to 8 TB of your data for $189. Send it back within 30 days and Backblaze refunds the $189 (its help centre notes a limit of five returned drives per account per 12 months). Or keep the drive.
IDrive’s equivalent, IDrive Express, posts you a temporary drive and says transfers take “a week or less”. An Express restore costs $99.50. Personal users also get one free Express backup a year, which is useful for getting a huge first backup into the cloud without uploading it. Return shipping is free within the US; customers elsewhere pay all shipping charges, including the return. IDrive’s estimate for Europe is about $41 for a 1–5 TB drive.
Both encrypt your data in transit and at rest, and both let you set a private encryption key (a passphrase only you know). Without it, the company holds the key. With it, staff cannot read your files, and if you forget it, nobody can recover them, including you.
One honest detail about Backblaze: when you restore through its website with a private key set, you type the passphrase in, and the files are decrypted on Backblaze’s servers to prepare the restore. Backblaze’s co-founder Brian Wilson has written openly about this trade-off, and Backblaze says it discards the passphrase after use. IDrive says its private key is user-defined and “not stored anywhere on the servers”. If keeping the provider out of your files matters, read our guide to whether cloud storage is safe before you choose.
Backblaze is famously low-effort. You install it and it starts backing up your user files automatically, skipping system files and applications. You do not choose folders unless you want to exclude something. Its throttle and threading settings let you trade upload speed against how much of your connection it uses.
IDrive gives you more control and therefore more to set up: you choose which folders and drives to back up on each device, and the app also includes sync (Cloud Drive), sharing and snapshot features. Its Bandwidth Throttle setting can automatically slow backups while you are using the computer. Power users like that; people who just want it done may find the app busier than they need.
Scorecard
Backblaze vs IDrive, category by category
DataFume rating from 1 (weak) to 5 (excellent)
Ratings are DataFume’s judgement based on the features and prices described in this article, October 2026.
If you freelance from one laptop, Backblaze is the simpler fit. If you work across a desktop and a laptop, IDrive’s single 5 TB plan is the better value. Either way, remember this is your off-site copy, not your only one: keep a local copy on an external drive as well, as our 3-2-1 backup rule guide explains.
Decision guide
Four questions to pick your backup
Start at the top. Stop at the first yes.
For one computer and the external drives directly connected to it, yes: Backblaze does not cap the amount of data. The limits are elsewhere: one licence per computer, no network drives or NAS, and external drives must be reconnected at least every 30 days on default settings.
Yes. IDrive’s mobile apps back up phones and tablets into the same account as your computers, and that data counts towards your storage allowance. Backblaze’s mobile apps only let you view and download files backed up from your computer.
No. Those are sync services: they keep the same files on all your devices, including your mistakes and deletions. A backup service such as Backblaze or IDrive keeps a separate copy with its own version history. For the difference in plain English, see The cloud is just someone else’s computer.
Your files cannot be decrypted, by you or by the company. That is the point of a private key. Store the passphrase in a password manager and keep a written copy somewhere safe.
You can, and some people back up one main computer to Backblaze and everything else to IDrive. For most people, though, one cloud backup plus a local external drive already gives you a solid 3-2-1 setup.
It depends almost entirely on your upload speed and how much data you have. A few hundred gigabytes on a typical home broadband connection can take days; several terabytes can take weeks. Leave the computer on overnight, and with IDrive consider the free yearly Express backup, which posts you a drive to load your data onto.
New to backups? Start with our 3-2-1 backup rule guide, then read Is cloud storage safe? for the real ways people lose data online. And if you are curious what happens when a service disappears altogether, see what happens to your data when a cloud service shuts down.
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