What is the Difference Between OneDrive Sync and Backup?

The main difference between OneDrive backup and sync is that backup refers to saving a copy of data on remote storage (here is OneDrive) to protect it from undesired events, while sync is to let multiple users work with data remotely using any internet-connected devices and synchronize changes across all the users involved. At its core, OneDive is a synchronization tool, not a backup tool. Is it possible to backup computer to OneDrive? If you are interested in this question, please keep reading!

Can you Use OneDrive as a Backup?

Of course, you can use OneDrive for backup. Nowadays, cloud storage like OneDrive is a popular backup solution for many users. Because these cloud storage offers huge backup space, powerful apps, useful features, etc., and keeps your data securely at a remote location.

Therefore, many users wonder if they can back up computer to OneDrive and how to achieve that. In the following contents, you will learn the benefits of using OneDrive to backup PC and learn how to backup computer to OneDrive in 3 different ways.

Benefits of Backing up Computer to OneDrive

☛Data protection

As we all know, data on your computer are always facing risks including system crashes, hardware failures, hacker attacks, viruses, natural disasters, and so on. Therefore, many users want to back up their data to another safe place in advance.

Cloud storage like OneDrive is a good backup destination that offers an offsite cloud server to store your files far away from local devices. Thus, backing up computer to OneDrive on Windows 10 can avoid all the risks mentioned above.

☛Easier access

To help users access and modify their data on different devices, OneDrive offers different apps for different devices. Therefore, you can backup all your computer files to OneDrive and then view these files on different devices at any time.

For example, on the computer, users can use the OneDrive web app to access their data with a browser. And on mobile phones or tablets, users can use the OneDrive app for mobile devices to view all their files.

☛Local space saving

After long-term usage, more and more data will be stored on your computer. However, storing too much data on the computer will not only take up a lot of space but also slow down the speed of the computer.

Thus, it is a good choice to back up computer data to OneDrive and then delete these files on the local hard drive to free up some space. And whenever you need this data, you can download them from OneDrive easily.

In this post, there are two parts for you to create computer backup to OneDrive, one is to backup the entire computer to OneDrive, and another is to back up the computer files to OneDrive. Let's find out.

Part 1. Backup Entire Computer to OneDrive At Once

If you would like to backup entire computer including the Windows operating system, settings, installed programs, and user profiles, to Microsoft OneDrive, you can try the free cloud backup service - CBackup, which allows you to backup everything on your computer to OneDrive as long as your OneDrive can hold these data from your computer. If your OneDrive doesn't have enough cloud storage space, you could try combining two or more OneDrive or other cloud accounts to get a huge one, then backup computer to the combined cloud.

Let’s see how to backup PC to OneDrive in Windows 10 automatically via CBackup:

Step 1. Download, install, and launch CBackup on your Windows 10 computer. Create a CBackup account and sign in.

Step 2. Click the Storage tab and then choose OneDrive that you want to add and backup files, and hit Authorize Now.

Step 3. Click Backup PC to Public Cloud under the Backup tab to create the OneDrive backup computer task.

Step 4. Select the entire Windows 10 computer, and choose OneDrive as your backup destination. For how to backup D drive to OneDrive, you can just select the whole D drive under source for backup.

Step 5. (Optional) Click the Settings on the bottom left, then tick Set a backup schedule for automated backup under the Scheduler tab, and choose an interval (one time only, daily, weekly, or monthly) to backup hard drive to OneDrive in Windows 10/11 easily.

Step 6. Then click Start Backup to backup computer to OneDrive automatically in Windows 10/11.

Then wait for a while to complete. There is something you should know when you create the OneDrive backup computer task, it will create a full backup, and then when it comes to the scheduled backup time, it creates incremental backups, which means that it only backup changes since the last backup, saving your OneDrive cloud storage and backup time.

Besides, CBackup keeps unlimited backup versions for you so that you can restore your computer to any backup version while OneDrive only keeps up to 30-day versions or other limited versions. If you would like to try other useful features of CBackup, you can try the following features:

It offers many useful backup settings like scheduled backup, file filter, email notification, and so on to speed up your backup process and manage backup easier.

It offers a feature called combine cloud storage to help you combine multiple OneDrive accounts into one huge backup space, even unlimited cloud storage.

It still supports cloud-to-cloud backup and cloud-to-cloud sync among OneDrive, Google Drive, and Dropbox to move files between cloud storage easily and quickly.

Offers 10GB free cloud storage space of CBackup Cloud, which you can protect files for free.

You can sync files and folders from local devices to Google Drive, Dropbox, OneDrive, and more.

Part 2. Backup Computer Files to OneDrive

In this part, you will be introduced to the 3 ways for using OneDrive to backup computer files and folders, let me show you the details:

Way 1. Backup Computer Files via OneDrive Web App

Actually, it is very easy to backup computer folders to OneDrive, as long as you rely on the OneDrive web app. You can upload files to OneDrive via the web app with the following steps:

Step 1. Navigate to the OneDrive web app from your browser and sign in with your account.

Step 2. Click the Upload button located at the top of the interface. You can upload any laptop files or folders that need to be backed up.

It’s not convenient for you to backup everything from the computer, because you have to upload them one by one or move all files and folders into one folder, then upload them all. However, it's quite time-consuming.

Way 2. Backup PC Folders to OneDrive via OneDrive Desktop App

If you just want to backup some of files and folders in your computer, like Desktop, Documents, and Pictures folders, you could also use the OneDrive web app. But the OneDrive desktop app is much easier. And the OneDrive PC folder backup can help you out:

Step 1. Please download the OneDrive desktop app and install it on your Windows 10/11 computer, then log in to your OneDrive account.

Step 2. Click the OneDrive icon on the system tray, and press the Settings icon on the top right, then select Settings.

Step 3. Select the Sync and Backup tab, and click Manage Backup under the Back up important PC Folders to OneDrive section.

Step 4. Tick the folders that you want to backup to OneDrive, and press the Start Backup button to backup PC folders to OneDrive automatically.

★Tip:

If you want to stop backing up these folders, use the same way to open manage backup, uncheck the folder and press Stop backup in step 4 instead of hitting the Start backup button.

Additional Way: Except for the above solutions to backup computer files to OneDrive, you could drag files and folders to the OneDrive folder or OneDrive website, then it will back up PC folders to OneDrive immediately.

Conclusion

For how to backup to OneDrive on Windows 10, here are 3 solutions for you. If you want to backup entire computer to OneDrive, the easiest way is to use CBackup. It is quite a powerful and professional cloud backup tool that can save you a lot of money and effort, and it's available to backup multiple computers to OneDrive. And besides backing up files to OneDrive, it also has many useful features that are worth a try.