ADrive announced they will be discontinuing their Basic (free) plans on November 16, 2015. Current users will have until then to migrate their data to another service, or upgrade to a paid account, before it is deleted.
ADrive says this move will allow them to focus more on their premium users, as well as adding new features. Current account holders will be eligible for a 25-58% off discount, when upgrading to a paid plan.
ADrive is an online backup service which famously offered 50 GB of free storage space. In our review, we praised ADrive for offering such a large amount of space, and for their competitive prices (at the time). Benefits included PC and Mac clients, while low points were the dated mobile apps and 2 GB file size limit with free accounts.
This announcement continues a trend in which cloud storage services are moving away from offering free storage, as they can no longer subsidize free accounts with paid subscribers. SpiderOak and SugarSync are two such services, which started out by offering free accounts, and later switched to paid-only models. In 2013 it was revealed that 96% of Dropbox accounts were free users, so this can be a substantial storage cost.
The full email is included below.
Dear Valued ADrive Customer,
This is an exciting time for ADrive! We have made extraordinary improvements to ADrive Premium over the past year and expanded its already feature-packed suite of services. ADrive users like you have been taking notice – we’ve seen a huge percentage of our loyal users make the switch to ADrive Premium!
Our “drive” has always been to offer you the best cloud storage solution possible. As we celebrate our 9th year, our focus – more than ever – is on expanding ADrive Premium so our service offering remains the best in the industry. As we shift all of our efforts to adding more innovative new features to ADrive Premium, ADrive Basic will no longer be offered effective November 16, 2015.
As a thank-you to our loyal customers, we are offering them a one-time exclusive discount on ADrive Premium. Upgrade now for 25% off 1-Year plans, 50% off 2-Year plans, and 58% off 3-Year plans. Once you upgrade, you can take advantage of all the Premium features, such as the award-winning ADrive Desktop Application with automatic drive mapping, automatic and manual backup scheduling, and synchronized folders.
Other exciting Premium features include ADrive Mobile, both iOS and Android, SSL Data Encryption, FTP, SFTP, and Rsync access to your files, and the ability to upload 16GB files. ADrive Premium users are hosted from a Tier 4 data center and have experienced no downtime since our launch in 2007. As a Premium user, you also have access to our world-class 24x7x365 support.
We value you as a customer, and hope you choose to stay with ADrive as a Premium user. If you have any questions or issues please contact our Support Team at [email protected].
Sincerely,
ADrive.com
Revolutionizing Online Storage & Backup
Geoff Akerlund
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