Best file backup service

Here we'll look more closely at some of those options:. Simply download the Google Backup and Sync app to your computer, install and run, and this will create a folder in your Windows file explorer from to which you can save your most important documents. While there are paid options to upgrade, this can prove expensive over the long-term if you want to backup and sync a sizable hard drive.

Microsoft OneDrive is the backup and sync storage option bundled with Microsoft Office There is a free version that allows up to 10GB of storage, but that it means it suffers from the same limitations as above, not least that you'd be better off using cloning or image software to back up your full hard drive. Even still, it's a useful keep to keep the most essential files safe.

Dropbox is another cloud server that allows you to save important documents online, again being free to use with the same limitations as above. But as before, the ability to save a smaller number of essential files, such as for work, study, creative projects, and similar, can be invaluable. Cobian Drive is something you install and setup on your PC for local use, which means that your saved files and folders are saved elsewhere on your machine, such as a second hard drive specifically for backups, or an external hard drive for the same purpose.

The software is a little old but it's still useful and worth considering for a free and quick fix. Backup4all is the paid version of the free Backup solution, this time adding more advanced features and a wizard for easily setting up your back up options. The software is relatively inexpensive, and there's a day free trial to allow you to test it out.

As well as support for local and external hard drives, it can also save to a USB stick or to a designated cloud service. North America. The best backup software helps you reliably backup your saved files and folders, as well as provide advanced options to better manage your saved data. View Deal. The differences between cloud storage, cloud syncing, and cloud backups.

Cloud storage is essentially a remote external storage drive. With cloud storage, you have to manually move your files to the cloud drive, and you can access them only through the internet. Cloud sync is like a shared remote drive, where the contents of a folder are synced across computers. People often use cloud sync for collaboration—such as when multiple people need access to files—because when a file is changed on one computer, that change is reflected on the others.

Cloud backups are really just cloud storage, but the software behind it is different. Cloud backup prices are typically lower than those for cloud sync, but cloud backup services rarely have sharing or syncing options. What about photos? How we picked. Amount of storage and number of devices : Cloud backup plans can be either unlimited plans that cover one computer or storage-based plans that allow you to back up multiple devices.

We looked for affordable services of both types for this guide. Support to back up external drives : A backup service should allow you to back up external storage drives. An external drive is often the primary storage location for important older files, especially for laptops.

Intuitive user experience : The software to back up your computer should be easy to use. It should never be confusing about what data it backs up, and it should run reliably in the background without overtaxing your system resources or internet bandwidth.

The software should give you the ability to schedule specific backup times and adjust bandwidth speeds. Support for versioning and flexible retention periods : Backups should include the most recent version of a file you created and copies of the file from previous moments in time, as well as files you deleted.

Services should keep these versions for at least 30 days, but we preferred longer or customizable retention periods. Continuous backups : After the initial backup period, future backups should run in the background, continuously uploading the files you change or create. This saves upload time, bandwidth, and storage space while keeping a record that the file existed in multiple places, so you can restore a version specific to any of those locations.

For example, if you download a bunch of files to the desktop and then move the files to your documents folder, a cloud backup that features deduplication will upload only one copy of those files. A simple and relatively speedy restoration experience : Most people restore files in one of two scenarios: when they accidentally delete or alter a file, or when an entire storage drive becomes inaccessible through loss or failure. For restoring individual files, we looked for services that offered options like restoring files in place to the original folder or to a folder of your choosing.

In the case of restoring an entire drive, we often saw download speeds as low as 1 megabyte per second from every service we tested.

Download and upload speeds all depend on the time of day, your internet speeds, the local network speeds, and your computer. Restoring by download was barely manageable for 10 GB of backups in our tests; it would be infuriatingly slow for larger restores. So we looked for services with the option for you to ask that they mail a physical drive with your backed-up files to help restore large backups on slow or capped internet connections.

Strong security practices : A good backup service encrypts data by default and details how it secures data in transit and at rest. In addition, backup services should provide basic account protections, such as two-factor authentication.

The most trustworthy companies also provide details about their on-site, physical security practices. The privacy policy and terms of service should be easy to read, with clear language describing how the service collects and uses any data from your account. Customer support : Customer support is rarely a priority with these services, but you should be able to submit a support ticket or chat request easily and receive a response within 24 hours.

How we tested. Our pick: Backblaze. Flaws but not dealbreakers. Select the files you want to restore and click the Continue With Restore button. Wait for an email notification that your files are ready. Download the ZIP file. How long this takes varies depending on your internet connection and the size of the file, but it took me nearly 40 minutes to download a 1. Unzip the file and move the resulting files to their original folders. Is data encrypted? Backblaze encrypts the backup on your computer and stores it with bit AES encryption.

Do accounts meet basic security minimum requirements? Does the company issue security updates to handle vulnerabilities? Backblaze updates its software frequently with both new features and security improvements. It regularly hires third-party organizations to test security and participate in a bug bounty through Bugcrowd. How is data shared? Backblaze does a reasonable job of protecting your data while still complying with United States law.

Like every cloud backup service, Backblaze shares data with law enforcement when required and uses a number of cookies and ad trackers on its website. The company quickly corrected the mistake, but the episode does illustrate how small errors can lead to problems.

How is data secured on-site? Remote backups are stored on servers in the United States and Amsterdam you can choose where your backups are stored when you create an account but not afterward , in buildings that require biometric security and ID checks PDF. Some cloud-backup services let you back up operating-system files and applications, while others back up smartphones and tablets.

Most can back up files to a local drive, and some even let you share files with other people or provide file-syncing or dead-storage functions. Because restoring terabytes of lost data can take days, some of these services will express-ship you a hard drive with your recovered data to save time. IDrive also lets you "seed" an initial backup in the other direction. But while some of these services back up an unlimited number of devices, and others give you unlimited online storage, none gives you unlimited space for an unlimited number of devices for a single flat price.

That would just be too good to be true. One last thing: Cloud backup services aren't always the same thing as cloud-based file-syncing services like Dropbox or Microsoft OneDrive. Nor are they exactly like file-archiving services such as Amazon Glacier. We explain the differences between these categories at the end of this buying guide. Secure, business-grade online backup for everyone, no strings attached.

It backs up an unlimited number of PCs, Macs, smartphones and tablets for a reasonable price. IDrive is the best choice if you have multiple computers and phones.

This is the best cloud backup service if you have a single Mac or PC and don't want to worry about the details. Acronis is best for power users, offering a breathtaking assortment of useful features. It's rather complicated and can get expensive for the average home computer user, but it gives you more options than you can possibly think of.

You'll get an unlimited cloud backup space, extensive security and scheduling options and very fast speeds. However, you won't get mobile-device backups or any drive-shipping options, and CrashPlan's networked-drive backups don't work on Windows. SpiderOak is famed for its security and encrypts your data with a unique key that only you have.

Don't lose it. Subscriptions are quite pricey, so get SpiderOak only if protecting your data from prying eyes is your top priority.

Carbonite was once synonymous with cloud-backup software, and it still has a rich feature set. Its consumer offerings seem affordable, but read the fine print: To get anything like iDrive or Backblaze's level of service, you'll have to pay more. It's our Editor's Choice for best cloud backup service. IDrive's upload speeds are fast, its mobile apps actually back up the devices they run on and recognize faces in photos for easy tagging , it provides a generous file-syncing option and it even lets you mail in a full drive instead of spending days uploading data.

IDrive also keeps old copies of each file forever, which is handy, but you'll have to mind those storage caps.

It also has two-factor authentication, which is an essential feature every online service provider should offer. Read our full IDrive Personal review. Backblaze is one of the cheapest cloud-backup solutions, gigabyte for gigabyte, and that's despite a recent price hike.

It's definitely the easiest to use — you literally can just set Backblaze and forget it. We also like the generous restore-by-mail feature and its rapid upload speeds. Backblaze even lets you locate a lost or stolen computer by geolocating the Wi-Fi network it connects to. But Backblaze is starting to be left behind as competitors add features such as cloud syncing, file sharing and backups of networked drives.

It's also not ideal for anyone who has multiple machines to back up, unless you happen to have have nearly unlimited storage needs. In that case, the reasonable yearly cost to back up each machine may be worth multiple Backblaze subscriptions.

Read our full Backblaze review. Acronis True Image, recently rebranded as "Acronis Cyber Protect Home Office," may be the most powerful and versatile online-backup solution available, with a terrific desktop application and an insane number of backup and security options.

It offers mobile-device, external-drive and social-media backups, as well as syncing and sharing options. It will save an image of your primary hard drive — applications, OS and all — to the cloud.

It also includes antivirus software, ransomware protection, a vulnerability scanner and a bootable file-restoration tool. But may be the best option if you're a power user or someone who's shopping for antivirus software as well.

Read our full Acronis True Image review. CrashPlan had the best cloud backup service for consumers until it quit the market in Its plan for small businesses retains that service's very fast upload and download speeds, and adds business-friendly features such as support for Red Hat and Ubuntu Linux and unlimited if you want retention of old versions of files. Almost everything is customizable, including frequency of backups, retention of deleted files, account security and where to download restored files.

What you won't get are the consumer-friendly features that made CrashPlan for Home so appealing, such as drive shipping and mobile-device backups. The mobile apps have great security but are pretty bare-bones. CrashPlan for Small Business also consumes a fair amount of system resources during backups, but you can adjust the application settings to reduce that. Read our full CrashPlan for Small Business review. SpiderOak was the first online storage or online-syncing service to make sure the customer held a private, exclusive encryption key.

Most other cloud storage services now offer the same thing, but SpiderOak also has strong file-sharing and -syncing features, as well as support for unlimited machines and, if you insist, backups of system files and applications. Yet SpiderOak's storage-space pricing is so high that it's more competitive with Dropbox than it is with IDrive.

So, it is advisable to backup these files online to prevent telling heartbreaking stories. You cannot undermine the importance of your document cloud backup.

Losing the pictures from that memorable family holiday or your graduation from college could be a saddening occurrence. With cloud backups, you never have to worry about this happening to you. To identify an image is very easy.

Videos are one of the easiest computer files to lose, which is why they are one of the best candidates you should back up.

Compared to the last two, video cloud backup tend to be bigger depending on their duration and quality, so they would consume a lot of space and take more time to backup.

There are many files that are peculiar to your system, so even if they get deleted, the system automatically restores them. Backing up these kinds of files is only a waste of time. Here are a few examples of files that fall under this category:. The Windows directory is unique for every different PC. This means that Windows automatically restores these files every time you install it. Therefore, backing up your Windows computer files to cloud could be a waste of time, especially if you have little backup space.

Program files are mainly the data your applications install on your system for their smooth operation. While these files seem important, it is unnecessary to back them up because if your system loses all data; you have to reinstall these applications.

This means the applications will automatically restore these program files. Cloud services are efficient backup options that have automatic backup options that can be customized.

However, some of these cloud backup services are not that easy to customize. Here are the steps to follow to use Backupper to backup files to cloud free of charge:. Step 1: The first step is to download the software, install, and launch it.