This post covers the introduction, comparison, and recommended local and cloud backup solution. Continue reading to get more information about them.
Nowadays, local backup and cloud backup solutions are the two most dominant backup methods. Their purpose is to protect data, but they perform differently.
Local backup means backing up your data to a device that does not require a network connection such as a USB flash drive, external hard drive, CD, and so on. All your data is not stored on a third-party server, but is all managed by yourself.
Cloud backup is also called online backup and remote backup. It will back up your data to a remote server off-site that is operated by the hosting provider or a cloud service provider. And when you set up a cloud backup task, you need a stable network connection.
If you wanna choose a suitable backup method for yourself, you should compare cloud vs. local backup in some main aspects.
Access data fast: Users can access their data at a high speed without a network connection.
High security: Data will not be stored in third-party servers so users have all control of it.
Inconvenient to carry: If you want to access data in the local backup, you need to bring the storage device everywhere.
No defense against equipment disaster: Local backup device is at risk of equipment disaster like computer crashes, human damage, etc.
Flexible subscription: Users can pay for different subscription plans with different cloud storage spaces according to their changeable needs.
More secure: Cloud backup can protect data from disk damage, natural disaster, computer crash, etc.
Easy to use: You can back up all your data with a few clicks.
Require network connection: The cloud backup speed depends on the status of the network connection.
Risk of unauthorized access: Your data may be accessed by the third-party cloud backup service without authorization.
After knowing something about local backup vs. cloud backup, you may not make a decision. Then you can keep reading to get some backup tools we recommend.
Among a lot of cloud backup and recovery solutions, we recommend one of the best cloud backup software - CBackup, which provides full backup features for free.
CBackup allows you to create PC to cloud backup easily, like backup files to Google Drive, OneDrive, and Dropbox directly. Besides, CBackup also provides 10GB of free cloud storage space in its own CBackup Cloud and you can backup data to CBackup Cloud as well.
Get a view of CBackup advantages:
β Combine cloud storage: With CBackup, you can get more cloud storage space for free. CBackup allows you to merge unlimited cloud storage accounts to one combined cloud for a larger cloud storage space. β Cloud to cloud transfer: You can try the cloud to cloud sync feature in CBackup for free to transfer files between two cloud drive accounts. And it allows you to add different accounts of Google Drive, Dropbox, OneDrive, and FTP/SFTP to CBackup. β Restore files: Once you create a backup of your files in CBackup, you can restore files of any version easily.
Let’s see how to set a PC auto backup via CBacukp with ease:
1. First, download and install the CBackup desktop app on your PC. Sign up for a new CBackup account, then run the client and log into it.
2. Select the Storage tab. Take Google Drive as an example: Select Google Drive > Authorize Now, then please follow the step-by-step instructions to grant CBackup access to your Google Drive.
1. Click on the Backup tab > the Backup PC to Public Cloud button.
2. You can change Task Name for your backup, then select local files on your computer as source, and select the Google Drive account you added as destination.
3. After the above, click the Start Backup button to start the task.
⇒ Note: If you want to make this backup task automatic, you can go to Settings to use the Scheduler feature for free. CBackup provides 4 different scheduled modes including One time only mode, Daily mode, Weekly mode, and Monthly mode. You can pick any one of them according to your need.
If you want to try local backup and your computer is based on Windows operating system, you can consider the following 2 Windows built-in local backup tools.
File History is a main Windows built-in backup tool for free. It focuses on file backup instead of system image backup. It was first introduced in Windows 8 and you can get it on all the later versions like getting a Windows 11 File History.
1. Go to Settings > System > Storage > Backup options, then choose Add a drive.
2. Turn the Automatically back up my files ON to enable it to create backups of your files. After the above, click Save and exit, Choose Back up now to finish.
Backup and Restore is another popular Windows built-in backup tool. You can create backup tasks to external hard drive and other local storage devices. You need to connect your storage device to computer properly first, then you can refer to the steps below to create a local backup via Backup and Restore:
1. Go to Control Panel, then choose Backup and Restore (Windows 7) under System and Security.
2. Choose Set up backup. Then you can select a backup destination on the pop-up page.
3. Choose what you want to backup. You can select Let Windows choose or Let me choose.
4. Select Change schedule to set an automatic backup task if you need it.
After looking through some information about cloud and local backup, we believe you have found the most suitable one from these local and cloud backup solutions. If you do not want to download new software, you can consider Windows built-in backup tools. If you want to use cloud backup, CBackup can be the best choice for you.