Feedback about IceDrive

[Th3Ghost]

Hello,

Before all 1. I’m sorry for my English

Before all 2. I’m not promoting any service here or saying that icedrive is worthless. All the topic is a general feedback of about 4 years of uses). And I wish that will push the admins to solve the problems and do something to save the service.

I’v been using IceDrive since 2020 when I bought a lifetime subscription. Recently I switched to another cloud storage service. IceDrive isn’t my main anymore.
I wanted to share with you my feedback about my use of IceDrive and the reason of my change.

Speed

The huge and most critical problem of icedrive is the speed. The speed of the service is just horrible. On webapp/android/Windows/Linux (now) /Webdav. I tried all the cases. And trust me it’s the main problem that makes others stuffs unusable.

I have a 1GB/s network speed at home and outside I have 5G. My download or upload are generally less than 1mb/s or 2mb/s. Which means that I’m unable to open videos directly, opening pictures is in general OK but sometimes it lags. And the use with other apps always fails (I will talk about this in Integration section). Upload and download takes time and many-times it fails. I think seriously for a cloud storage provider before talking about any feature. Infrastructure and speed should be on top priority.

Talking about cache or so is useless, and users shouldn’t care about such things. Because:

1. It’s a tech part and you are selling a service so you have to find a solution for it.
2. The speed is the problem and it’s not the cache
3. Other cloud storage provider doesn’t have this problem. So you shouldn’t have it too

Integration

The second huge problem that I found is that icedrive isn’t recognized anywhere. In any app / service that can uses cloud storage. You’ll find all the global services as google drive, drop box, or the one I switched to. But not icedrive. With some chances if the app/service can use the webdav protocol. Well the network speed ruins everything and become not worth using.

Android app

I won’t lie, the android app is cool. Nice UI as the webapp anyway. Nothing to say. Except the fact that I’m not able to open a file directly from installed android apps. For example if I have an excel file in my drive. I want to open it with my excel app, edit it, and save it. You can’t imagine how much that feature is important. And it exists in other cloud services

Linux App

Yeah, I’m a beta tester and using Ubuntu. I was about to add lack of app for Linux in my list, but you added it. So thanks.

Before, I was using webdav… and you can back to what I said in speed part.
Please add auto lunch and auto mount and appicone (I had to create one I own)

PS : for those who are unable to install it. do :

sudo apt-get install libevent-dev   
sudo ln -s /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libevent-2.1.so.7 /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libevent-2.1.so.6

Conclusion

IceDrive is good service it offers many features, many platforms, for a nice price. I saw that the lifetime part was cancelled. I think it’s not a good idea. It was one of your powerful arguments.

I’ll just tell you as client what I’m waiting for you. I bet everyone thinks the same. And with that you’ll be just perfect.

1. Your main problem is the speed. Seriously, stop thinking about everything else and fix that. Nothing worth if the client can’t access to his duties as fast as possible. I can have a huge storage box but if there is only small slow road to access to it. It doesn’t worth. I won’t buy it

2. Having a good speed is good. But having only one road and one way to access to the storage isn’t interesting. Please contact services that use cloud storage and ask them to add you to the list. Do the technical job to make it easy. And trust me, more you are available everywhere more you become interesting.

3. I won’t talk about the android app or Linux because it’s just features (That is important and have to be added. but not a priority)

4. The life time plane is why I have chosen you at first. Without that I wouldn’t do for sure. It was one of your main arguments. Please make it back. (Not for me but for future clients)

Thanks

[DB126]

Interesting to find this recent post as I was about to write something similar. IceDrive is now a secondary cloud storage provider due to repeated failures of the Windows ‘mounted drive’ tool which was one of the primary draws. I have encountered random zero-byte files on several occasions which could only be recovered via previous versions and/or independent backups (good practice regardless of provider). This issue has been reported by other users but never acknowledged by IceDrive staff. Only a promises of a rewritten sync tool announced in June 2023 that has yet to emerge.

Reliability is paramount. If you can’t provide that (and quickly correct issues when identified) then there is no reason to remain a customer.

[Th3Ghost]

Hello,

That’s it. Customers prioritize reliability over additional features when choosing an online cloud service. Essentially, they expect the service to function like a physical hard drive: offering readily accessible storage with fast data transfer speeds. Any malfunction or sluggish performance caused by inadequate infrastructure or flawed tools quickly diminishes the service’s appeal.

[Mwyarm]

I have repeated many of the same items, mainly speed and features. There is none to little investment of both mandatory fixes and customer recommendations. There is no voting system of proposed features like most companies and the system is so basic you have to find workarounds to get around the problems (ex. you can only have 10 pairs). I have made so many suggestions over the last 3 years and not 1 has been implemented. I have commented I too have a 1GB internet service and I admitted get 15mbs to 30mbs but for mainstay users that is horrific. I have tried WEBDAV but no solid results. Everything is fixated on their windows desktop application to do the synching. Personally, I prefer to use my own synch tool and write\delete directly to my Icedrive folder. The windows synch app is what slows, or throttles, everything down.

Basically, IceDrive is a basic service. Nothing exciting or glamorous but it works, works slow, but it works if you have low volume and have no expectations of fixes.

Like the other user, I am hopefully providing constructive feedback to improve the product. I am willing to be BETA and help improve the product but there appears to be no interest.

So my response when asked, "it is ok if you have a couple hundred files, you use your phone with no expectations of the service other than move a few files here and there, go for it. It is very basic and boring but it will sync your files if you don’t plan to confirm it did or did not work. Don’t expect much from the Windows desktop if you have 100K files but expect to turn your PC off before synching and hope it resynchs and eventually uploads the data. I never leave my PC running 24 hours as there is too much internet risks. The product does synch eventually but I use a 3rd party to confirm everything is there. Summary, ok, basic and eventually synchs with no thrills. Good luck!.

Have a great day.

[Spi]

+1 for bad experience.
I paid lifetime in August 2022 and experienced issues with sync, upload, download, corrupted files etc. for which i created tickets. None of them produced solutions but were closed.
In November 2023, 5320 files went to size 0 kb without explanation. Allegedly a non compliance to Windows file management. I was advised to restore individually by clicking trough to versions but for this many files it was impossible.
After some time they agreed to script the restore from their end. 1000+ files were not recovered.

I still have the space but isn’t using it anymore.
Moved to a simpler, more rugged and way faster solution with a US based company.
Unfortunately their Trustpilot score is mixed up with another company who repair Apple devices (name resemblance).
Not naming any but on e.g Techradar they are ranked Best Cloud Backup Overall.

[Abe]

BRAVO! Agreed wholeheartedly! I also came for the end-to-end encryption with client custody of keys. I’m glad IceDrive is leaving anti-privacy UK jurisdiction. You hit on one of the biggest problems: speed. Up/down is so slow I can’t use the services. Just uploading or downloading single digital pic, small sizes, is fraught with problems. Often files never make it up into the cloud. And it’s so common for me NOT to get files out of the cloud before a time out I’ve reverted to using flash memory sticks to get files from machine to machine.

One feature I’d really like to see IceDrive implement is checksum at file upload so you can be confident what you THINK is in the cloud is actually what’s in the cloud. This is the second limitation of cloud storage/backup. Nothing else matters if your files change on up- or download.

Thanks for highlighting these issues.

[Spi]

Given the feedback, shared experiences, lack of remediation and endless delays I find it hard to understand why people insist on taking the risk instead of using other providers that outperforms Icedrive on all parameters.
A complete redesign or possibly a merger with a supplier that really knows this line of business is probably the right path for Icedrive. And of course, those of us who have already paid for lifetime will be offered migration to the new solution without further ado.

[redwood]

I am pleased with the speed of IceDrive as a user in 2024. I chose IceDrive because of the pricing of its lifetime storage (the point of cloud storage, in my opinion, is to have the security of backup, so lifetime or at least several years should be the default option), and really its nice design which inclined me to believe it is well-run.
My main issue is not a deficit it has relative to other cloud drives. It comprises of a number of common sense measures that I am astonished are not found in most cloud services. The feature that I am most in need of is probably the ability to search files by their contents. I do not give my files such long descriptive titles as to describe all of their contents. Most of my files are notes, so they are chronological more than anything and every topic imaginable can be found in each file. I need to be able to search them like I would be able to search a single document. (A workaround is DocFetcher though this is not working for IceDrive files at the moment; it indexes and searches them properly but does not preview or open them.)
The other issues, the difficulty of previewing or opening documents in full detail in-app, the difficulty of making sure all files are uploaded when you do so in bulk, and overall simply the difficulty of understanding how it works. Ideally there should be one simple list of checkboxes each for one effect, such as whether deleting it at the source also deletes in IceDrive, etc.