For a while now, Microsoft’s OneDrive has been quietly improving and integrating in the office space. It was a slow start. But thanks to a stream of regular updates and features, OneDrive now comfortably rivals the likes of Dropbox and Google Drive in the best cloud storage stakes 

It helps that OneDrive is tightly integrated with the Microsoft 365 Office apps and the Windows operating system. You’ll find the cloud storage tool built into Windows 10 and Windows 11 devices - whether you want to use it or not. Separate client tools are available for macOS, Android, and iOS, and a web browser portal.   

• You can sign up for Microsoft 365 here

Cloud storage deals

OneDrive: Pricing & plans 

Microsoft OneDrive offers 5GB free cloud storage to personal users, and a range of subscription plans.  It’s also worth noting that the free plan does have access to online-only versions of the Office apps, much like Google’s offer of an online G Suite.

A 100GB storage plan costs $1.99 per month and offers very little more than an ad-free version of Outlook. 

A pair of Microsoft 365 plans come in the form of the 1TB Personal plan ($6.99 a month) and the 6TB Family plan ($9.99 a month), which offers 1TB of storage each for up to six people. Both add access to Skype and the suite of Office apps, including Outlook, Word, Excel, and PowerPoint, which can be downloaded on up to five computers. It’s a touch more expensive than iCloud Drive and Google Drive, which both offer 2TB of storage.

Annual subscriptions offer small discounts. However, this doesn’t help to undercut many of OneDrive’s rivals as they also offer similar incentives. 

For those that need business features, like user management and advanced file auditing, a variety of business plans are available too. Prices start at $5 per user per month, if you pay annually. That gets each user 1TB of space, but doesn't include Microsoft Office apps. 

More expensive packages are available, that add in unlimited cloud storage for every user, or the Microsoft 365 apps, but somewhat enigmatically, not both. Prices climb to $12.50 per user per month. 

OneDrive: Interface & experience 

When running Windows, OneDrive shows up in the navigation pane, right alongside Documents, Desktop, and everything else, to quickly right-click on files and folders to move them to the cloud or make sure you've got local copies available. It's seriously slick and easy to use.

Alternatively, the web interface, which can be accessed from any computer using your Microsoft ID, lacks a level of sophistication. It doesn't have the stylish simplicity Google Drive or Dropbox. But it does get the job done of displaying your media, sharing your files, and letting you move files around, but it hardly has any panache.

On other interfaces, it's a mixed bag. The syncing client for macOS isn't anything that notable, but like the web interface, it covers everything you're going to need without getting too confusing, running from the menu bar, and can optionally start up with macOS. Unfortunately, it tends to get a little bit in the way of Apple iCloud Drive though.

That said, the desktop client does offer extra control for things like throttling bandwidth and saving files to your computer or storing them in the cloud only, both of which help you to free up space or speed on your computer.

Perhaps on the mobile front is where OneDrive does its best work. The apps for Android and iOS are elegant and intuitive to use. Users are enabled to jump around folders and files with a few swipes and taps. There’s a decent level of control within them for passcode protection and mobile data use, though some other cloud drive apps offer more thorough management.

We found the apps particularly strong at syncing and displaying photos and videos that have been snapped on the smartphone. Although OneDrive has plenty of competition in this area, not least from Google Photos and a host of the best Google Photos alternatives, it’s one of the best photo cloud storage apps out there.

By the very nature of a cloud drive, users will be minimizing their use of physical devices in favor of an access-anywhere nature. Part of this may involve eliminating the home printer, which has long served as a scanner, too. We like the handy document scanning feature in the app, and while it will never match the quality of a dedicated scanner, it does its job very well. 

OneDrive: Features 

Microsoft OneDrive works similarly to other well-known consumer cloud storage options, such as Dropbox, Google Drive, and Apple iCloud Drive. You specify the files and folders you want to be backed up, and they get automatically synced with copies in the cloud, along with the other computers and devices that you've got OneDrive set up on.

On initial setup OneDrive will create a dedicated folder in your home directory, though you can change the location of this if you wish. Any files you place there will automatically be synced to the cloud.

It should come as no surprise that OneDrive works best on Windows. Much like iCloud Drive is closely intertwined with the macOS experience, OneDrive offers seamless performance for those running Microsoft’s operating system.

What it doesn't do is provide unlimited, bare metal backup of devices. This means that you'll need to reinstall operating systems, settings and applications should the worst happen in a catastrophic drive failure, as OneDrive only takes care of your files. External drives and NAS drives aren't supported. So, it’s not a full cloud backup service. In fairness, this is common for this consumer-facing type of cloud storage service. Google Drive and iCloud Drive also only backup files and not an entire hard drive. OneDrive can also bring back previous versions of your files from as far back as 30 days ago.

Drop a file or folder into OneDrive, and it gets synced to the cloud and your other devices. If you want to save space on your local machine, the option is to just keep a copy in the cloud, which is handy. During our tests, we noticed that files copied to the OneDrive folder were stored in the cloud only by default. However you can right click files or folders and choose ‘Always Keep on this Device’.

Sharing files and folders with other people is a breeze too, as OneDrive can generate a link for you.

For sharing, when you opt to store Office files like Microsoft Word and Excel in OneDrive, extra features are unlocked. This includes auto-saving, so you never lose your work, and advanced online collaboration tools. These let you work on files simultaneously with other people, right inside the desktop applications or on the web. 

Additional tricks include being able to play audio and video files directly from the web, and using AI-enhanced search on your photos.

We especially like OneDrive’s Personal Vault. Whether you’re a personal or business user, or using it as a family, security needs to be top of mind for cloud storage. This vault adds an extra layer of security when it’s required. Files, including photos and videos, can be protected with additional authentication like biometrics, a pin, or a one-time code sent by SMS or email.

OneDrive: Security 

With the whole Microsoft account and Microsoft 365 subscription running, OneDrive gets protected by 2FA, which is reassuring. This means that even if your username and password are exposed, access to your files and your account is still going to be blocked. 

The Personal Vault feature requires yet another layer of authentication, like a fingerprint or a PIN, for access. However, currently, OneDrive doesn't protect the names or hashes of files, even when they're locked in your personal vault. The Microsoft Support pages also doesn't say exactly how the data is protected inside the vault, for example through more robust encryption. 

AES 256-bit encryption protects files in transit and at rest, which is not the same as end-to-end encryption, meaning that Microsoft engineers can access your data when needed such as for a restoration. Microsoft promises this is tightly controlled. Microsoft stores the files across multiple data servers as well, to further guard against data loss, and overall, we consider it an impressively robust system. 

As OneDrive isn't open source, there's no way to be certain that encryption and authentication is being done in the most secure way. Still, the platform is compatible with popular cloud encryption tools like BoxCryptor, so you may want to use this with OneDrive for extra peace of mind.  

OneDrive: Our tests 

We ran three key tests measuring sync speed, file recovery and versioning on OneDrive. Tests were conducted on a Windows 11 virtual machine running the OneDrive desktop client.  Our VM was connected to the internet via fiber broadband via VPN server, which in speed tests consistently showed an average upload speed of 70 Mbps  

• Test 1 - Sync speed

To test OneDrive’s sync speeds, we copied a 650 MB folder containing 22 files of assorted file types, into the application directory. We then measured how quickly the desktop client was able to sync the files to the cloud. 

In our original tests, we found upload speeds to be as expected, however in our tests downloading the same file for offline access took longer than the upload. This was more notable using the desktop client, which should be less of a concern because this is typically left to run in the background. 

In our most recent tests we found that OneDrive's performance had improved considerably, both for download and upload.

We added the test folder to Onedrive/Documents. The client displayed the upload progress of each file, as well as a progress report at the top of the window to show the number of files remaining.

Our average upload speed was 70Mbps and we were very pleased to see that the data in total took just under 75 seconds to upload. This is around 10% faster than other cloud storage clients we've reviewed.

• Test 2 - File recovery

To test file recovery, we deleted the test folder from the application directory, removing it from the device. We checked to see if the files had been removed from the cloud drive, and whether we could recover them.

We noticed our version of OneDrive would place any files copied to the Sync folder into the cloud only by default. To make this a fair test, we right clicked our test folder and chose ‘Always keep on this device’.

We allowed the files to sync then deleted the test folder. Upon opening the Onedrive desktop client, we immediately saw the Recycle Bin option. We clicked this to launch the OneDrive web portal and saw all the deleted files listed immediately. We chose Restore, only to find the empty folder in the OneDrive directory - without any files.

We returned to the OneDrive web portal and selected all the deleted files this time and chose to restore. This time they were synced back to the device in under a minute. 

• Test 3 - Versioning 

Although Microsoft 365 apps are capable of keeping different versions of files, we wanted to see how the OneDrive client itself fared with our test document.

Testing OneDrive’s versioning capabilities, we copied a .docx file to the cloud application folder. Once it synced, we deleted all text except the introduction, then saved and closed. We then tried to restore the document back to its original form. 

After saving and closing the document we opened the client app and saw the file listed. Upon clicking on it, we saw Version History right away. Clicking this, a helpful popup window showed the various versions of the document, including the original that we chose to restore. This version of the file opened without issue. 

OneDrive: Verdict 

OneDrive really deserves to be considered in context, as for a dedicated Windows user, and for those that make regular use of the Microsoft 365 suite, then OneDrive follows as a cloud storage extension to other Microsoft products. However, as an add-on for macOS, Android, or iOS, we found it less useful - unless you’re looking at cloud storage for photos. 

Put another way, it's not about the features or the pricing of OneDrive that makes it a good or a bad deal, it's really more dependent on what software and services you're currently using. 

We appreciated the extra security features such as 2FA and the Personal Vault. On the other hand, we would’ve appreciated more information and transparency on exactly how OneDrive protects your data both within the vault and in transit. Ideally this would be done through making the client app 'open source', so the code could be reviewed by the community, but frankly this is very unlikely to happen considering Microsoft Windows itself is proprietary software. 

What we can say for sure is that OneDrive has matured to reliably take care of all your file backup and syncing needs across multiple platforms.

If you're looking for a free file recovery tool, one of the first suggestions you'll come across is TestDisk and PhotoRec. Since 2008 this open source file recovery tool has grown in popularity, thanks to its flexibility and ease of use. That's despite TestDisk and PhotoRec relying on a command line interface rather than a mouse-driven user interface.

Also check out our standalone PhotoRec review.  

Free, open source, and almost universal

One of the main draws of TestDisk and its companion photo recovery app PhotoRec is support for a wide range of platforms.

Beyond Windows 11, TestDisk and PhotoRec can be run on Linux, macOS, Mac OS X on PowerPC, and various ARM-based platforms. Available in 32-bit and 64-bit versions, there is even a Windows 9x/MSDOS build of TestDisk and PhotoRec. Source code for the software is also available to download and compile. It can also be run as 'Live' CD or DVD in case your OS isn't recoverable.  

Key recovery features

With TestDisk and PhotoRec, recovery is split into two broad groups: partitions and filesystems, and photos and other images.

Many recovery issues concern missing partitions. TestDisk can find many lost filesystems, including NTFS, FAT32, exFAT, ext2, ext3, ext4, HFS, JFS, and many others. Furthermore, TestDisk can also undelete files on certain filesystems, namely FAT, exFAT, NTFS, and ext2.

Meanwhile, PhotoRec can find a vast selection of file formats, such as common image files (JPG, PNG, etc.), Microsoft Office files, OpenOffice file formats, PDFs, and TXT files. Over 440 file types have been recorded, meaning that if the data is intact, it can in theory be recovered with PhotoRec.

In addition, PhotoRec has a GUI option. In Windows this is qphotorec.exe. This works in largely the same way as the CLI tool, with the options displayed in a single window rather than a step-by-step series of commands. Recovered partition images can be checked in TestDisk using the terminal.

Find files with TestDisk and PhotoRec

In our original tests with TestDisk and PhotoRec 7.2 in September 2022, we used an unmountable 16GB SanDisk Cruzer Blade USB thumb drive with files of various types was connected to a standard USB 2.0 port on a Dell G5 5505 SE laptop running Windows 10. 

Recovery with the command line TestDisk was attempted first. After opting to Create a new log file and selecting the correct disk, the Proceed option was selected followed by the partition table type. We selected "Image Creation" to search for a location to save the file, using the arrow keys and then hit Enter to navigate. Finally we hit C to choose the recovery destination directory and waited as the partition was recovered as a disk image.

Throughout the recovery process, TeskDisk selects the default options that are typically most suitable for the recovery media. These may or may not be correct but they do give the best results if you don't know what you're doing. Various additional settings can be found using the Options menu before commencing recovery.

Images stored on the USB thumb drive were sought out for recovery using the PhotoRec tool. After identifying attached disks, and selecting the correct device, PhotoRec presented a File Opt submenu. Here, the various compatible filetypes can be selected, covering everything from Skyrim save games to FLAC audio. As with TestDisk, a recovery location must be selected for the files to be saved to. When recovery commences, an estimated time to completion is displayed along with various statistics concerning recovered filetypes.

How we tested this time 

For our data recovery tests this time we used a virtual machine with a clean install of Windows 11. The only third-party tools installed besides TestDisk and PhotoRec were VLC Media Player and GIMP. 

For the sake of simplicity we also used the graphical frontend for TestDisk : QPhotoRec. 

This is much easier than using the command line. You can start by selecting a disk device to recover from the drop-down menu, then select a partition. After you confirm the filesystem type, you can then hit Browse to find (and create, if required) a destination to save the recovered files to. After that hit Search and wait. 

The simplicity of the QPhotoRec interface can save time, particularly if you're unfamiliar or uncertain with command line interfaces. 

Data files

The files we chose for our most recent recovery tests were an album of Mozart's Music available from the Internet Archive. 

We did this as we wanted to see how the utility performed with a wide variety of files.The album included 4 music files (2 in Mp3 and 2 in FLAC) format, 6 JPG image files of album covers (with thumbnails) and 4 PNG image files. The files also included 2 XML files, a torrent file and an 'SQLite' file containing details of the album. There were 25 files in total. 

We copied the files in the music album to a 512MB virtual NTFS-formatted hard drive, which was then attached to the Windows 11 virtual machine.

Data tests

The tests were performed one after the other on three separate virtual drives:

1. File deletion: the album files were simply deleted from the drive and the Recycle Bin emptied. No other data was copied to the drive. We then tried to recover the files. 

2. Delete & format: The files were deleted as outlined above and we also performed a 'Quick Format' using the 'Disk Management' utility built into Windows 11. We then tried to recover the files from the formatted partition. 

3. Recover corrupted files: We used the freeware program 'Victoria' to overwrite the volume header of the drive containing the files with zeroes. The drive didn't mount automatically in File Explorer and showed as being unpartitioned in Windows "Disk Management" utility. We then checked if the utility could see it and if so, recover the files. 

We do not believe that running data recovery tools in a virtual environment has a significant effect on how they function. Still, if you're considering buying software we encourage you to read all reviews thoroughly and make sure that the developer offers a refund policy.

Recovery Performance

In our previous tests, we found that Partition recovery with TestDisk was relatively straightforward, despite reliance on the command line interface. Browsing for a directory is slightly disorientating for anyone unused to the CLI, but the recovery process itself is efficient. A progress bar charts how far through recovery the process is. 

Sadly, with the recovery media, TestDisk was unable to complete creation of the disk image, stopping at 74.5%. Instead, an incomplete image was created. Disappointingly, this would not open in TestDisk or PhotoRec.

Using PhotoRec was similarly uncomplicated, interface aside. We used the software to dig out complete and incomplete files alike in a fresh recovery process. 

Unfortunately, it can also over-deliver as the filetype options don't always give you the results you need. The list of recoverable formats is as complete as it is long to browse through. Consequently, you can end up recovering every type of data to find specific and unusual filetypes – the resulting index of files can take a long time to sort.

On the other hand, QPhotoRec passed our most recent tests with flying colors. The first test was performed on a drive attached to the virtual machine where the files had simply been deleted.

The utility detected all 25 files within seconds and even listed them by type. When we went to the folder we'd created earlier to save recovered files, we found all of them were intact and opened without any issue.

Our next test was on the drive which had been given a "quick" NTFS format after the files had been deleted. Once again we selected the drive from the top down menu and selected  a new folder to save recovered files. Once again QPhotoRec didn't disappoint. It recovered a total of 37 files, amongst which were all 25 original files intact. The extra files were duplicates of some of the JPG files but all opened without issue.

The final test was performed on the drive with a corrupted volume header. Although it wasn't visible in Explorer, QPhotoRec still displayed it as a "missing" partition in the drop down menu. This time we chose to extract files from the "whole partition" via the menu option. 

Recovery this time was a little slower, taking just under a minute but again all 25 files were successfully saved to the new folder. We tested each of the files and found they opened or played without any problems whatsoever.

As stated in the online documentation PhotoRec is a file carver in that it analyzes data for known patterns without paying attention to missing file headers and other data. This means that while all the files were recovered intact each time, the filenames were missing.

Still, to date, this is one of the very few data recovery utilities on the market that has passed all three of our battery of tests when it comes to retrieving files. 

We were also particularly pleased to see that QPhotoRec has a handy "File Formats" button. While virtually every extension is highlighted by default, you can click "Reset" to clear these and then search only for specific file types such as JPG images.

The only bug we came across during testing is that if we tried to choose a "File System" for a disk that was different to the one actually used e.g. ext2 instead of NTFS, the app would crash. This is only a small point and by default the utility selected the correct partition type. 

Multi-language support

No recovery tool is without its problems. If you run into issues recovering files with TestDisk or PhotoRec, you can refer to the support forum. 

Both these utilities are the brainchildren of French developer Chrisophe Grenier, so it's no wonder that the subforums are available  in English, German, and French, you should find all the help you need.

Of course, there is a small shortcoming – the possibility of a problem and solution being discussed in the French subforum that might prove useful to a user in the English or German subforums. 

Fortunately the main website itself is able in a variety of languages beyond these including Italian, Japanese, Turkish and Russian. 

For the time being it seems the online documentation is only available in English however but if you are an Anglophone then you can learn about basic operations like data recovery as well as how to do more exotic tasks with the utility like create a bootable USB. The ZIP file we downloaded from the main website with the program also included a PDF in English of the online documentation. 

The only downside of TestDisk that we could see is that the installation files are downloadable only in ZIP format. This caused Microsoft Defender SmartScreen to highlight the software as unrecognized and prevent us from downloading it. For a recovery tool that has been around for as long as TestDisk and PhotoRec have, this is unfortunate. However, SmartScreen has been hurting independent developers for years, so this is nothing new. 

The fact that the app can be run from the folder from where it's unzipped also means it can easily be made 'portable' by copying it to a USB. 

Final verdict

As a free partition and file recovery solution, TestDisk and PhotoRec does everything a domestic user might expect. They're as suitable for standard PC workstations as they are for laptops, but you wouldn't rely on these tools for recovering servers or specialist and business critical data.

While the command line interface is straightforward, the QPhotoRec option maximizes the usability, and it would be nice to see this replicated for TestDisk in a future release, for those not comfortable with the CLI. 

The QPhotoRec app itself has a very basic GUI but is easy to follow. We were extremely impressed that it passed all of our data recovery tests, retrieving all deleted files even from formatted and corrupted drives. 

Very few of the commercial data recovery products for which people pay annual subscriptions have been able to do the same, so we certainly recommend using this free and open source utility. 

We've listed the best data recovery service and the best free data recovery software.

Gator Website Builder bundles excellent web hosting from HostGator with a user-friendly website builder tool, which makes it easy to create a quality online presence.

 Gator offers an easy-to-use, drag-and-drop interface that makes creating your own website simple and straightforward. 

What is Gator website builder by HostGator?

Gator is a website builder created by HostGator that makes website building easier than ever before. It's designed to be intuitive, so even if you don't have any experience in web design, you can still create a great-looking website with ease. 

The drag-and-drop editor allows you to customize your site without having to write code. With Gator, you can choose from hundreds of templates and customize them with your own images, text, videos, and other content. 

Pricing: Is Gator good value for money? 

Gator offers three plans, each of which is tailored to meet the needs of different types of businesses. The Start plan is Gator’s most basic plan, but it still includes some great features such as intelligent site building, free hosting, unmetered bandwidth, a free domain, bookings capability, fast websites (CDN), and a free SSL certificate. Additionally, you can access Unsplash’s image library with the Start plan. However, this plan has a limit of only three products that can be sold through your website. This makes it ideal if you are just starting out with online sales or have fewer than three products to offer customers. The monthly cost of the Start plan is $3.84.            

The Site plan has all of the same features as the Start plan plus calendar management and a side-by-side view of staff calendars for email notifications. It also allows up to 10 products to be sold through your website. The price for the Site plan is $5.99/mo. This plan may be better suited for businesses that have more than three products and need additional functionality like calendar management or staff calendars for email notifications.      

If you need even more features than what is included in the Site plan then consider investing in Gator’s Store plan which includes everything in the Site plan plus unlimited product sales capabilities, priority support, and no transaction fees. This option costs $9.22/mo. The Store plan may be beneficial if your business sells multiple products or services that need to be managed through your website with unlimited product sales capabilities.

HostGator also offer you a 45-day money back guarantee on the hosting fee, should you not be satisfied with their service.

Setup

Signing up for Gator Website Builder is simple and straightforward. The interface is familiar, and generally easy to use. A left-hand sidebar enables managing key areas of your hosting (websites, domains), while the opening screen prompts you to create your website, and once you're up and running, gives you a few very basic stats (unique visitors, total visits, page views, bounce rate.)

Tapping the Create A Site link displays thumbnails of Gator's hundreds of templates. There’s a lot to explore, but you can use keywords to narrow down your search.

Features

The editing interface is familiar and straightforward. A left-hand sidebar enables adding various types of content to the site; a toolbar at the top of the screen has a range of essential functions (page navigation, undo/ redo, desktop or mobile views, Save, Preview and Publish options), and the rest of the screen is reserved for the content of your current page.

Gator's pages are initially built from predefined sections. These start with a header and a footer, but you can add others to display particular content types (text, images, videos, image galleries, schedule, a Features, Contact Us, Join My Mailing List section, and more.)

Each section comes in multiple templates, with their own layout and formatting. Sections like Images & Text, Video & Text and Text & Buttons allow you to include further content. Pick whatever most closely matches your needs, and you can add it to the page in a couple of clicks.

You’ll also find Elements which you can drag onto your pages - to help you further customise these templates, or create sections on your own from scratch. There are a good range of elements in most of the key areas, and include multiple button types, live feeds to Twitter and Instagram, various PayPal buttons (Buy Now, Add To Cart, Donate, and Check Out), and a range of social media features (social links, sharing icons, Like buttons, Follow buttons and more.)

Page layouts are generally very flexible. Existing section elements can be moved or resized, and new elements may be dropped onto the page with pixel-level precision.

Clicking any object within a section - a text block, an image, a menu, social media buttons - displays a floating toolbar above it, with actions you can perform. These start with a decent set of standard options, including the ability to add animations (have an image fly in from the left, for instance), use drop shadows, or have the element move with the page. But there are also a good number of more element-specific tweaks to explore. 

Add a video gallery, you can set up the number of items on a space, how they're positioned, the entrance and exit transitions, the transition timings, SEO information, and set up any custom element behaviours (display a pop-up image when an element is clicked, for instance.)

Although all sites are advertised as fully responsive, The Mobile Preview section feels pretty limited, only offering an illustration of what your site would look like on a phone in vertical orientation. You can’t appear to be able to rotate it, or even see what it would look like on a larger tablet.

Smart design keeps Gator easy to use. Key functions are available in a click or two, and most of the complicated stuff is tucked away where it won't baffle newbies. Overall, it's a well-balanced editor which has plenty to offer both first-timers and more demanding users.

Blogging

Adding a blog to your Gator site, and managing it afterwards, is quick and easy.

The process starts by selecting your preferred templates. New blog posts are created using a subset of the standard page editor. There are all the usual text formatting commands, but you don't get access to the main editing widgets, and the Add Element button only allows for the insertion of images, videos, lines, headings and paragraphs. If you want to add a map, or an image gallery, or any of the other components available in the main editor, you're out of luck.

There are plenty of ways to customise how your post looks and behaves on the blog page. You're able to set a title, a cover image, and a summary, as well as assigning tags to help users find related posts, and pin a post to the top of the blog.

There's no option to schedule posts, unfortunately. Blog comments are supported by the Facebook comments system only, which can't be controlled or configured in any way. The blog has one advanced feature in its optional RSS support, but otherwise it's very much about the basics only.

E-commerce

As mentioned above, all of  Gator Website Builder plans give you an option to extend your site with a simple web store, but only the high end one offers you all the bells and whistles.

The store supports both physical goods and digital products. You can make the digital download time-limited, or set a maximum number of times a customer can download the same product from a single purchase.

If you need to import a ready-made product catalog, Gator accepts various formats such as Excel, Google Sheets, ecwid, and CSV. If your needs are more modest and you only have a few products to sell, you can input the data manually as well.

There is very little control over how products will be structured and displayed however. Your time will mostly be spent entering product details and configuring key store data (address, preferred currency, and so on.)

Product descriptions are basic, but there is enough power here for many simple sites. You start by entering one or more images, along with some formatted text and a price. There's support for product variants (size, color) and organizing products into categories (shoes, accessories). Setting up and applying discounts should appeal to potential customers, and adding a weight allows the site to automatically calculate shipping rates.

None of this begins to compete in depth and power with specialist e-commerce providers like Shopify, but Gator is undeniably easy to use, and much cheaper. You could manually add three or four products in a few minutes. Shipping and tax calculations (with international support) are built in, PayPal integration enables taking payments right away, and creating a Stripe account gets you card support, too. There’s also an option for Cash on Delivery.

Experienced users won't be impressed, but Gator Website Designer could be a reasonable choice for creating a simple web store.

Final verdict 

Gator Website Builder's smartly-designed editor is a great way to quick create professional and good-looking websites. The integrated blog and web store are relatively basic, though, and are unlikely to satisfy demanding or experienced users, but could well be appealing to beginners.

• We've also featured the best small business website builder

You might also want to check out our other web hosting buying guides:

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• Best website hosting

iDrive offers what might be the best cloud backup and best cloud storage services in a comprehensive, user-friendly package that even lets you backup all of your PCs, Macs, mobiles, and tablets from the convenience of a single account. 

Personal plans come in 5TB, 10TB, 20TB and 50TB forms, and Team plans are available for anywhere between five and 100 users, offering 1TB per person. 

Larger companies will benefit from the Business plan, offering as little as 250GB or as much as 50TB per person, with an unlimited number of users.

The flexible and tailored pricing strategy does make iDrive a very reasonable proposition, although the cost does go up for those that need the business features – such as server backup. At the higher tiers, it becomes a more expensive solution than the likes of Google Drive and Dropbox, justified by its wider set of features.  

iDrive: Pricing & plans

iDrive used to offer 5GB of free storage with no credit card required - making it one of best free cloud storage solutions for casual users. Now, you get an even sweeter deal: 10GB free cloud storage, which is among the best free offerings of any cloud service. Services and features are more limited in this case, though.

A basic Personal plan starts at 5TB, costing $59.62 a year, although a $15 upgrade for twice the amount of storage (10TB) will likely provide greater peace of mind when backing up several devices. 

The Business plan offers unlimited users and devices, with pricing starting from $74.62 for a year for 250GB, going up to $8699.62 for 50TB of space per user. Sitting somewhere in the middle is the Team plan. This comes in several version, offering support for five to 100 users, each with 1TB of space. The cheapest plan starts at $74.62 for one year, climbing to $7499.62.

Choosing the business account rather than a personal one also gives you extra features such as server backups, multiple user management, and access to priority support. We also like the support for single sign-on, which helps to streamline access for non-tech savvy employees making iDrive a genuinely usable service for all.

TechRadar readers can get 10TB of cloud storage for $3.98 for the first year. You can grab this exclusive deal by clicking here. 

iDrive: Features

It’s really hard to accuse iDrive of being short on features. For example, there's Snapshots, which lets you store up to 30 different versions of your files, an Express service that lets you put your data on all the best hard drives and actually post them off, and the ability to create full disk images in case you need to rebuild a computer from scratch. All paid users get access to these physical backups via a temporary storage device via 'iDrive Express, which is especially handy for those with poor Internet connectivity. 

This is capped at once per year for Personal customers and three times a year for Team and Business subscribers, though subsequent requests are always available at the cost of $59.95.

Then there's also some less obvious functions. iDrive only uploads modified parts of files to reduce bandwidth usage; data gets retained until you specifically delete it; there’s an extensive set of activity logs and reports you can access. For team managers, there are multiple user management and remote backup services. 

This is all on top of the core functionality, which backs up an unlimited number of devices – computers, mobile phones, servers – to a single account. If necessary, it can also back up data from mapped drives on a network. Meanwhile, the iDrive web portal makes short work of managing all of these devices together in one place. While it is filled with function, the basic and frankly uninspiring user interface of the desktop client does leave users feeling somewhat short-changed.

In addition to the standard features that will appeal to everyone, there are several aimed at organizations with larger, more complex requirements. This includes server cloud backups covering Linux, Oracle, Sharepoint, MS SQL, Exchange Server, and more.

iDrive includes bare-metal disaster recovery, which is the business-grade solution for the best ransomware protection. Help with new data standards can be found as well, via encryption and date stamping for those in the medical, accounting, and legal professions. 

iDrive: Interface & experience

Cloud storage can be accessed through the browser portal, but for the full experience including device backup, the relevant program or application should be installed. Handily, iDrive supports all major device types, though the desktop clients are more impressive than the mobile apps in terms of polish and features. You can have iDrive backup your entire hard drive (or mobile device) or just specific files and folders, and run backups manually or on a schedule. 

By default, the desktop client selects your Music, Video, and OneDrive folders for backup, although you can add or remove other locations. The goal here is very much ‘set and forget’. Set up everything the way you like, and then let iDrive quietly work in the background.

Another useful feature is folder syncing, for keeping certain files consistent across all of your devices. There are intuitive menus and settings screens that make it clear how to create the configurations you need. It’s also great that it is simple to use, so you don't need to have an IT degree or to even consult the help pages to figure out how to do the vast majority of tasks.

The iDrive cloud storage apps have a ton of settings, though iOS versions are less impressive. While the Android client is able to back up things like your SMS messages, iPhones and iPads are limited to contact, calendar, photos and videos. In fairness, this is more of a limitation set out by Apple than iDrive. The desktop client allows granular adjustments for bandwidth throttling, file and folder exclusion, data verification, and more. You can even pause a backup if the battery level on your laptop or your phone drops below a certain level.

Uploading and backing up files is just as quick as big players in the cloud storage game, such as Google Drive. As such, it’s unlikely that iDrive will be the bottleneck here. The primary restriction will come from your ISP’s upload speeds which, in most cases, is slower than the download speeds. 

Worth noting is that browser downloads redirect to a new tab, and the process of opening the new location can be slow. In our original benchmark the 1GB test file took up to 6 times longer to open in a new tab on the mobile client than the actual download process, which can prove both time consuming and rather annoying. The entire download process wasn’t quite as slick, and took several minutes more than Google Drive. Fortunately, we didn't find this to be a problem when using the desktop client for our most recent tests - more on that in a moment.

One feature of the iDrive web interface that particularly impressed us was that the account password is required to delete any file, helping to prevent any accidental deletes as the user unconsciously navigates the portal on autopilot.

Due to the nature of the service, iDrive is intended more as a backup drive than a cloud space from which to work, so editing documents online is a no-go. This means downloading and reuploading your files as and when necessary, so it’s crucial that you take into account the somewhat convoluted downloading process mentioned above before committing.

Nevertheless there is a Cloud Drive option, which you need to manually activate when you download and run the client. Any files or folders placed in this folder in your home directory are synced to iDrive’s servers.

Having reached out to iDrive, it is confirmed that there is no maximum file size limit, which is great news to teams and businesses working on large projects such as video production.

iDrive: Security

On top of two-factor authentication, iDrive provides end-to-end encryption for your data. Be cautioned that this requires a private key known only to you, so don’t forget it, or you can't get anything back. It also means that you won't be able to share files and folders with other people, as this will break the end-to-end encryption protocols.

Another option is standard encryption, which isn't quite as secure, but will still protect your data against most potential breaches. In this scenario, iDrive stores the encryption key, and can help you restore your data if needed as well as potentially hand over your files if compelled to by law enforcement. The other advantage is that you get to use the file and folder sharing features with this setting. If you still want to be able to share some files, we recommend using best encryption software to protect any data before uploading it to the cloud.  

iDrive: Our tests

When testing iDrive’s performance, we ran a total of 3 tests measuring sync speed, file recovery, and versioning. In order to do this, we used the free 10GB plan, as our chosen files were well within the limit. As we understand it, iDrive doesn't limit transfer speeds or features for users on the free tier. Tests were completed on a Windows 11 virtual machine running the iDrive desktop client. Our VM was connected to the internet through fiber broadband via VPN server, which in our speed tests consistently showed an average upload speed of 70 Mbps  

 Test 1 - Sync speed 

For this test we first closed any third party/internet apps.  We then copied a 650 MB folder of Sherlock Holmes audio books from the Internet Archive into the application directory. We measured how quickly the desktop client was able to sync the files to the cloud. The folder contained 22 files including MP3s, images, metadata files and a PDF. 

In order to get cloud sync working, we had to open the desktop app and enable it manually from a tab. A new folder named Cloud-Drive then appeared in our home directory. When we copied the folder of audio books into here, the folder appeared with a green tick next to it, suggesting it had synced right away. We had to double click to go into the folder to see some files had been uploaded (green tick) while others still had the 'pending' icon. 

The iDrive Tray icon also reported on the sync process. In all it took 110 seconds to upload all 625MB of data, which is consistent with our device's uploaded speed.

 Test 2 - File recovery 

In this test we simply deleted the audiobook folder from the application directory, removing it from the device. We then checked to see if the files had been removed from the cloud drive and if it was possible to recover them. 

If the cloud provider offers you a way to store files in the cloud without keeping them on your device, we test this feature too. 

After we deleted the audio book data from the Cloud-Drive folder, we emptied the Recycle Bin then opened the iDrive desktop client. We found the 'Restore' tab but the deleted files weren't listed.

We had more joy when logging in via the web portal though. We found after login if we clicked "Cloud Drive", then "Trash", the deleted files were listed. We selected them all then clicked "Put Back". The client took a minute or so to respond but then it did quickly download the deleted files back to their original location. 

 Test 3 - Versioning 

If you're writing a long, important document, the last thing you want is to make changes you can't undo. Some cloud providers prevent this by regularly saving different versions of a file. This means if you change something you shouldn't have, you can just roll the file back to before this happened.

To test this in iDrive, we copied a Microsoft Word (.docx) file of the public domain story The Purple Cloud to the cloud application folder. Once it synced, we then deleted all the text except the introduction, then saved and closed. We then tried to restore the document back to its original form, complete with all chapters. 

In order to test whether iDrive could restore an older version of a file, we first copied the Word document to the Cloud-Drive folder. Even though it was less than 400KB, it still took around a minute to sync.

We then deleted all text except for the introduction, closed the document then opened the desktop app. We were able to click the file in Recently Modified Items, but this just opened the Cloud-Drive folder.

Luckily, this is where the iDrive website dashboard came to the rescue again. When we opened the cloud drive there and selected the file, we were able to select Version. From there we could download the original unmodified file by clicking on the corresponding icon.

iDrive: Verdict

iDrive gets high scores for the sheer breadth of services offered – from backing up the photos on your smartphone to backing up the files on your company's servers. The software packages and various interfaces aren't the best ever, but they get the job done very well. 

For those that have a lot of devices with data that needs to be secured at reasonable prices, then iDrive could well be the service for you. It has a great feature set that covers a lot of ground, with enough security protection and extra features such as folder sync and bandwidth controls to satisfy the majority of users.

During our tests the files synced to the cloud quickly. We were also able to see that iDrive can handle restoring deleted files or even older versions. However, it's a shame you can't access those features from the desktop client. 

The free 10GB plan only makes sense for users looking to store documents in the cloud, as space is too limited to perform any major backups of computers, phones and tablets. In this case, due to the lengthy and awkward download process, it’s hard to recommend the free version, even if the sizable 10GB of storage space is rather valuable. 

When considered relative to other free allowances offered by other cloud storage providers, iDrive lands somewhere in the middle. It's much more generous than Dropbox's 2GB but considerably smaller than Google's generous 15GB. We can't help but feel that iDrive might be better off taking their focus away from server backups and raising their free allowance game instead. Still, pricing is clearly laid out and can be customized to your needs. 

Ultimately, iDrive is best suited to businesses - from self-employed individuals and small teams to huge, international corporations - thanks to the level of flexibility across three different plan types.

• You can sign up for IDrive by clicking here