Are you looking for a secure location to back up and store all of your digital data? This article will assist you in getting started. In this article, we’ll take a detailed look at the best cloud backup services to see where they excel and where they fall short.
What exactly is cloud backup?
Let’s start with the fundamentals. We typically back up all of our data to an external disk or a local network. These local backups are ideal for a speedy recovery. What’s more, they’re vulnerable to the same threats as your computer: malware, hardware failure, accidental erasure, fire, theft, and so on.
The best online cloud backup services, on the other hand, transfer your full data set via the internet to remote servers in various locations. You’ll be able to effortlessly access these secure off-site backups at any time and from any location, and restore them with a single click or two.
Best Cloud Backup Services to Keep Your Data Safe
IDrive
IDrive is a cloud backup service that allows you to backup an unlimited number of PCs, Macs, and mobile devices. However, while IDrive allows you to backup an unlimited number of devices, it has file-size and data constraints, and it does not provide limitless data backup.
Unlike many cloud backup services, which simply backup user files such as documents, images, and videos, IDrive backs up your complete machine, including the disk and system image.
What truly distinguishes IDrive are its features, privacy, and security. Backup scheduling, mobile backup, courier recovery, and version retention are included in all IDrive plans. IDrive will save up to 30 versions of any file you back up to your account, and it will store your data indefinitely unless you destroy them.
IDrive also includes some distinguishing features. Snapshots, which provide a historical picture of your data and allow you to recover files at any point in time, are my favorite feature. Then there’s multi-device syncing, hybrid backups that allow you to save files to any location on your local devices and the IDrive cloud, and even IDrive Face, which utilizes face recognition to help organize your backed-up photos.
Dropbox
Dropbox is a seasoned cloud storage provider with basic but user-friendly backup capabilities and a diverse set of integrations and add-ons. The Business plans to expand on the personal plans by providing larger capacity (3GB to infinite), document signing, tracking, big file transfers (100GB vs. 2GB for personal accounts), enhanced file sharing, document analytics, and more.
Dropbox, for all of its capabilities, is really simple to use. On-demand backups can be as simple as dragging and dropping your target files into the Dropbox folder, for example, while the Dropbox Backup tool conducts automated backups of your selected files and folders while you go about your business.
This is all done through a simple, attractive interface that is available on all platforms. We especially enjoyed the web interface, which displayed our files and folders clearly, permitted streaming media files directly from the web, and came with a slew of useful features and thoughtful usability touches.
Another standout was performance, with upload and download times nearly twice as fast as we’ve observed with some rival services from both the apps and online interface.
Dropbox definitely shines when it comes to business-oriented products and extras. Paper, for example, is a collaboration platform that allows numerous users to work on the same document at the same time. We’re not talking about the kind of multi-user text editors you’ll find elsewhere. Paper can also be used as a brainstorming tool, a project manager, a calendar, a To Do list, a Wiki, and other things.
Backblaze
Backblaze provides a slew of essential features, like unlimited cloud storage and fast and dependable online backups, all at an affordable price. Platforms and ease of use: Backblaze enables backup from both Mac and PC computers. Setup is also simple, requiring only a few details such as your email address and password.
Storage and frequency of backups: There is unlimited storage, but it only protects one machine per account. Backups are done continuously by default, but you can also schedule them.
What exactly is backup? Except for system files, program files, apps, empty directories, and temporary web files, all of your data is automatically backed up. If you have data on external disks, it is also backed up. You can define which folders should not be backed up. The Business Plan also supports data backup from a network (NAS).
CrashPlan
CrashPlan is a complete business backup service for desktop computers (Windows, Macs, and Linux) that delivers a slew of useful features while being surprisingly simple to purchase, set up, and use.
There’s no need to sift through massive comparison tables to figure out how much storage space you’ll need. Even the basic CrashPlan for Small Business plan has no file size or storage space limitations. There are no hard and fast limitations to its versioning support: you can store prior versions of files for years if necessary.
The service is quite adaptable. Backups can be either continuous or planned. Online, local, or both options are available. CrashPlan can also limit CPU consumption while the user is engaged, reducing any impact on system performance.
During testing, we discovered a few CrashPlus issues. Upload rates were slower than expected with the default settings, and the interface made restoring data more difficult than we’d like. However, the service is incredibly simple to set up, and once it is up and running, you can generally just get on with your life, leaving CrashPlan to keep you safe.
What criteria did we use to select the best cloud backup services?
When we analyzed cloud backup services, we looked at their features as well as their service quality. Because there are so many factors involved in number-based tests like to upload or download speeds, we simply notice any outliers as they are performed (super fast speeds or very slow performances). More essential to us are the overall experience of the service (whether using a web browser, a dedicated client, or a mobile app), security (file encryption, ransomware protection), and value for money.