IDrive was having a sale whereupon you can get 10 TBs of storage for $3.98 for an entire year. That was too good of a deal for me to pass up, so I’m trying them out. Now, to be clear, I still have no desire to go back to posting bootlegs daily. That time has passed. But as I’ve repeatedly said, I would like to continue to share the music in some capacity.
I still don’t know what that will look like or when I’ll actually start regularly sharing shows. But since I have an IDrive account I wanted to try it out a bit.
So far from an uploader’s perspective, it isn’t great. It seems to be built as an online backup system. It keeps wanting me to sync up my entire computer’s hard drive. That’s not a bad idea, actually, considering how many hard drives I’ve lost over the years, but that’s not why I paid for the storage.
It took me a while to figure out how to upload some different files but I think I’ve figured it out. It uploads pretty fast which is nice. I’ll have to spend some time seeing how I can organize files, but that will come later.
What I really want is feedback from you all. I uploaded three different things. I uploaded a Buddy Miller show that is all zipped up. I uploaded a Bill Monroe show that is unzipped. And I uploaded a photo of the classic screen actress Romy Schneider.
If you would, I’d like you all to download all three just to see how it works. From my experience, it does not seem like you can download an unzipped folder. You have to download each individual file which would make downloading an unzipped show folder really obnoxious. But maybe your mileage will vary.
It also doesn’t appear that you can preview anything. Like the Amazon Drive it doesn’t appear that you can read a text file without downloading it. It does appear that you can preview an image file, but I don’t know how useful that is for our purposes.
Please leave me some comments describing your experiences with this. Since I have it and have 10 TBs of storage I’ll probably use it when I start sharing shows again, but I’d like to find the best way to do so.
You can see the files here.
themidnightcafe.org 
I assume you’re still keeping the Amazon drive files up at least until April 2023? (fingers crossed)
My dude, I will be keeping the Amazon Drive until April. If for some reason I decide to delete anything or cancel my subscription early I will let you know. You don’t have to keep asking me.
Also, even if I do get rid of Amazon I still have the files so you can always make a request and I can reupload the files to some other site (like IDrive for example).
Can’t seem to download…I’ve tried clicking everything and nothing comes up as a download…
I tried to download, clicked on everything all possible ways and nothing came up as downloadable……
If you hover your mouse over the file you should see a little down arrow over to the right. Then you can just click on the file and it will start downloading. I did notice that my Firefox browser made me approve the opening of a pop up before it started downloading. So, you may want to check your browser settings or you ad blocker settings to make sure it allows you to do that on IDrive.
Whenever I gave the approval I didn’t get a pop up but rather a new tab opened up. There was nothing in the tab but that’s when I was asked where I wanted to save the file. Hope that helps
Sorry to double up on the earlier replies…following what you said I was able to download Buddy Miller and the photo, but no luck with Bill Monroe, the little arrow didn’t show up……
No need to apologize. I want your feedback. I was trying to say this in the original post, but it doesn’t seem like you can download an unzipped folder, which is what the Bill Monroe is. I think you have to click on the Bill Monroe folder which will take you inside that folder. There is actually another folder that you’ll have to click on to get you to the actual music files. From there you should be able to hover over each file and get the arrow and download.
Which would be very annoying to do. Please don’t feel like you have to download all those files. From this point on I’ll zip the folders before uploading.
they all worked for me just as you stated. Buddy in one zip file, Monroe one at a time and the pic of Romy. Seems to be fast enough but I haven’t done an a/b comparison. That would be too many variables for my old tiny brain
I appreciate the feedback. I feel like unzipped files would be a huge pain as you have to download each file individually. But zipped folders should be fine. Glad to hear to speed is pretty good. IDrive was so cheap I figure it is at least worth playing with and maybe using (at least until the year runs out.)
Having to click multiple times isn’t *that* big a deal though, so my own opinion is whatever is easiest for you. You put in way more effort than is being asked of us!
I liked having unzipped folders on my Amazon Drive because then I could stick the different sources for each show inside one big encompassing folder and name it with the show date. That made things easy for me in terms of organization. But in Amazon You could click on a folder and it would download the entire thing.
I can see how having to download each file, one at a time would get annoying. It could also get confusing if you aren’t careful to download them into the right folder each time. It should be easy enough to organize zip folders. Especially since I am not necessarily trying to store all of my bootlegs online anymore.
Hi Mat,
The Buddy Miller and Bill Monroe, give me a number of downloads exceeded message. The photo opens just fine, but I can’t seem to download it. Clicking on download does nothing.
Bob W.
Morning from UK Matt,
The Bill Monroe files all downloading except the text file which gave the number of downloads exceeded message. Couldn’t download the Buddy Miller – same message. Romy Schneider downloaded fine
Seems there may be a limit of some sort. Hmm!!!
I can see the main directory, three icons including a thumbnail of the image. I can download the photo but when I click on download arrow for the zip file it says the maximum download limit for that file has been exceeded. When I click down to the folder of unzipped files, I can only try to download them one at a time (and I get an error message “” when I try)
It appears that IDrive limits the number of times a file can be downloaded to 25. After that I have to reset the share link. That is really obnoxious for two reasons.
1. Obviously that limits the number of people who can download it at a time and will make me have to constantly reset.
2. I specifically asked for feedback on these downloads. Clearly, the files were downloaded 25 times and yet I only got a few comments. I have shared all of these files (well not the image one) on my Amazon Drive and my blog. They are not new. If you all wanted the files but didn’t want to comment you could have grabbed them that way. But, apparently, folks downloaded from the IDrive and didn’t bother to comment which then caused those who might want to comment to be unable to download the files. I find that really annoying.
Was able to download Romy Schneider just fine. Bill Monroe gave me “the number of downloads exceeded” message. Having read the comments I did not try for Buddy Miller. That limitation would seem to be a deal breaker.
I was able to download the files. For the .zip file, it just takes a minute for it to set up and say it’s ready to download. Unzipped folder files download quickly but have to be downloaded one at a time. Did not run into the “number of downloads exceeded.”
Hey Mat! All good on my end. I did download each Monroe file and it took about 1:40. The Buddy Miller took about 30 seconds to load and an other 30 seconds to download. NO ‘downloads exceeded; notification Since you already commented that you would upload folders and not individual files, I see no problems with IDrive. The reset after 25 downloads is annoying for you but you get what you pay for. Please keep doing what you are doing – it is appreciated.
Ok, I think the 25 download limit is going to be a deal breaker. It isn’t that difficult to reset it, but I suspect it would become quite annoying the more files I upload and share and thus have to reset. Plus I won’t always be home to reset it which means people will have to wait until I can reset it before they can download and that would be really obnoxious for everyone.
IDrive really looks like it will be good for backing up my hard drive, but not really for sharing my music.
The Buddy Miller Zip file said it had reached the maximum downloads.
The Bill Monroe files downloaded quick and smooth.
The photo also downloaded.
Sorry I was late to the party but it was a busy Friday.
I’ve had this answer of IDrive when trying to download the zipped file: “the number of downloads for this shared file has been exceeded”, The others are downloaded Ok an quickly enough. Thanks one more time, Mat.
Best wishes, lapiedra52
was only able to download photo, no arrow for Monroe, “The number of downloads for this shared file has been exceeded” for Miller.
Hey Mat,
Just tried the downloads.
Couldn’t get the Buddy Miller (“downloads exceeded”).
The Bill Monroe individual files all downloaded almost instantaneously.
The Romy Schneider photo downloaded just fine also.
Thanks once again for all your efforts.
I had the exactly same experience as greatscott67, “Downloads exceeded” error message for Buddy M. and I had to go into the Monroe folder to access the files, then DL – once I did that, DL speed was excellent.
I had a longer reply typed up, but it looks like everybody else has covered my points. But what the heck, just to consolidate and leave input that I hope is helpful:
– On paper, IDrive sounds like an awesome solution – lots of bandwidth, cheap – all good
– You have to allow popups to get the downloads going. No biggie, just maybe put a note about that on any posts
– I got this message when trying to DL the ZIP: “The number of downloads for this file has been exceeded”
– Downloading the tracks one by one (as on the Bill Monroe upload) wouldn’t work well – I think the only useful/efficient method is to upload one ZIP like Buddy Miller
Thank you for exploring this option Mat!
What kind of pop-ups did you get? On Firefox I had to allow pop ups but that seems to be only to allow the download dialogue to pop up. But maybe my ad blocker blocked something else?
Not that it really matters all that much at this point. I won’t be using IDrive for my shares as the download limit makes it pretty much useless.
I was able to download the Bill Monroe file. I was not able to download the Buddy nor Ronnie files due to “The number of downloads for this shared file has been exceeded”.