IDrive e2
A budget-tier S3-compatible cloud object storage from IDrive (the established backup vendor), priced at **~$5/TB/month** with **zero egress and zero API request fees** under fair-use, and **zero minimum retention period** — buckets can delete data anytime without early-deletion penalties (unlike Wasabi's 90-day rule). 14+ regions globally including a **Tokyo region added May 5, 2026** as the first IDrive e2 footprint in Japan, explicitly positioned for AI workloads in Asia. No object lock, no versioning, no event-notification surface — the trade-off for the price.
Definition
A budget-tier S3-compatible cloud object storage from IDrive (the established backup vendor), priced at **~$5/TB/month** with **zero egress and zero API request fees** under fair-use, and **zero minimum retention period** — buckets can delete data anytime without early-deletion penalties (unlike Wasabi's 90-day rule). 14+ regions globally including a **Tokyo region added May 5, 2026** as the first IDrive e2 footprint in Japan, explicitly positioned for AI workloads in Asia. No object lock, no versioning, no event-notification surface — the trade-off for the price.
Wasabi's flat-pricing model is attractive but the 90-day minimum retention and per-storage-class quirks bite cost-sensitive iterative workloads. IDrive e2 strips the model further: the same egress-free shape with **no retention floor and lower per-TB pricing**, targeting backup, dev/test, and AI training-data staging where churn is high and the storage horizon is short. The Tokyo expansion (May 2026) is a deliberate response to Asian AI training operators choosing data-residency and latency over the US/EU defaults.
Budget S3-compatible storage for backup/restore cycles, AI training-data staging where datasets churn weekly, dev/test object storage, secondary storage for cost-minimizing multi-cloud architectures, low-cost archival without minimum-retention lock-in.
Recent developments
- Tokyo region launch (April 24, 2026) — first IDrive e2 footprint in Japan. Per the IDrive e2 Tokyo region announcement, IDrive added a Tokyo region for AI workloads in Asia, reiterating pricing: $49.50/TB/year or $5/TB/month, no egress fees, no API request fees (under fair use). Tokyo is positioned explicitly for AI workloads — the broader strategic shape is that low-cost S3-compat providers continue to add APAC capacity as the Asian AI-training market matures past hyperscaler-only options.
- Pricing positioning confirmed across multiple 2026 reviews. Per G2 (March 2026) and FitGap (May 2026), IDrive e2 pricing is stable at $0.005/GB/month ($5/TB/month) with a $5 minimum, $49.50/TB/year yearly prepaid, and a first-year promo at $24.75. For workloads that fit within fair-use thresholds, IDrive remains among the cheapest S3-compatible options on the index — competing directly with Wasabi and Backblaze B2 on the cost axis.