What is cloud backup?

Before talking about cloud backup, let’s get the basics. In the past, many users always back up data to a local disk or external drive, which is very convenient for quick restoration. But it often makes us suffer from fire, stolen, or another local disaster like a system failure.

Therefore, people invented PC cloud backup and successfully attracted everyone’s attention. Because it claims to be a service that can backup main data storage systems, remote office servers and storage devices, end-user devices such as laptops and tablets, and store the files on a remote server off-site to avoid nature and local disasters.

Always be prepared - Local backup vs. PC online backup

After a period of use, your personal PC would end up having lots of data of yours, such as personal documents, photos, videos, and any other data. It’s wise to make a copy of your important files. More importantly, you are supposed to create a continuous or scheduled backup. Because just making a single backup won’t give you the latest version of your files when you need to restore them.

👉 With a local backup, your PC may get damaged or stolen, the ransomware can prevent you from accessing your data, or any human error and occasional disaster can make you lose data. But if you use online computer backup instead, you can greatly reduce these risks.

👉 If your budget is limited and you can only choose one of the backup methods on the market, your best choice is PC online backup software and I'll introduce you best online computer backup service and its features. But if you have more budget, you can take a pc backup to cloud, and to an internal disk, external hard drive, or USB flash drive, etc.

Essential features in the best cloud backup for PC

How to choose the best online computer backup? You may have this question and want to know the priority of features in the cloud backup services. Here are some introduce and you can use them as a reference.

Platform support: Most services support both Windows and Mac.

Easy setup and management: The once and for all approach is the best.

Storage capacity: Many services offer unlimited storage, but you need to check and confirm for yourself.

Continuous or scheduled backup: This type of backup can minimize data loss and ensure your files are up-to-date.

Encryption of data: The most popular service always provides you 128-bit or 256-bit encryption, AES encryption, or personal encryption key.

Versioning: This feature makes you roll back different versions of files.

Retention of deleted files: Some services provide file versioning forever while others are limited to 30 days.

Syncing and sharing: Some user-friendly software allows you to sync or share files with other devices and your friends.

External hard drive backup: This feature is not supported by all online backup services.

Mobile backup: Cloud file backup on Mobile becomes increasingly important.

Briefly introduce of 6 best PC cloud backup services

In the following, I’ll show you the most popular and commonly used 6 online PC backup software. You can choose the most suitable one according to your needs to backup PC to the cloud.

• Backblaze

• Carbonite

• CBackup

• CrashPlan for small business

• iDrive

• Acronis

Backblaze

Backblaze is the first and most popular service provider worldwide. It allows you to automatically backup computer data to the cloud excluding system files, programs files, applications, empty files, or temporary web files. And it can ensure your data and account security by using AES encryption, private key, two-factor authentication. What’s more, it’s uploading speed is very fast and you can upload files over 4GB, including 3-hour 4K videos. The personal backup only costs you $6 per month.

It’s amazing if you only have one computer. But if you want to backup multiple computers to the cloud or need features not listed in the above, you could consider using Backblaze alternatives in the following, such as Carbonite, Acronis, iDrive, CBackup.

Carbonite

Carbonite is one of the best remote backup services for small businesses. It offers automatic backup, unlimited cloud storage, and it’s very easy to use. It backs up all the selected files during the installation process and encrypts them via 128-bit or 256-bit encryption or private key. It allows you to view and manage your backup on the desktop app, or web interface

It has some useful features you may be interested in. But sometimes its lowest uploading speed makes users feel upset. If you want a faster speed, you could consider using the Carbonite alternative.

CBackup

CBackup is the best free cloud backup service, which provides you with unlimited storage if you have unlimited cloud drives and add them to CBackup. Its client supports backing up all files on a Windows PC to the cloud (Google Drive, Dropbox, OneDrive, CBackup Cloud, etc.) and provides the most professional backup methods and security protection. Its web version supports an unlimited combination of cloud storage space, and its tasks are mainly related to cloud disks, such as Google Drive, OneDrive, Dropbox, etc. It allows you to back up your computer online free and scheduled backup files, daily, weekly, and monthly. In short, this service is suitable for users who have multiple cloud disks.

CrashPlan for small business

CrashPlan is a favorite option for small business and power users who use Mac, Windows, and Linux. You can decide to back up what files, when, and how often, excluding a few files in certain system folders. Also, you can easily find the files by its date, time, or version. Besides, it’s customizable and powerful, which helps you create continuous or scheduled backup provides different destinations such as online and offline, enables encryption, compression, or retention policy, monitor backup process, and settings, configure clients, and more.

It’s a little expensive for the majority of users, the small business plan costs users per month and a computer. So, if you have more budget, you can use this. If not, just give up.

iDrive

iDrive is the best overall service provider for Mac, PC, Linux, and mobiles. It can help you backup the entire drive including OS, settings, apps, files, and folders, and keep the content and structure intact. Also, it can assist you in managing your backup well via centralized consoles, such as, view the account activities, changing settings for your devices. In addition, it gives you long retention periods for deleted files.

You can use this software if its unique features are high on your priority lists, such as system and application backup, centralized console, long retention, and more. Also, if it’s poor, you could try its alternatives.

Acronis

Acronis is the most powerful and versatile PC cloud backup service for Mac, PC and mobiles, virtual machines, and social media accounts. It will back up the entire disk by default, for example, external drives, mapped network drives, Outlook, and OneDrive. Also, you can manually select what to back up. In addition to encryption and personal key, it still can protect against ransomware and crypto-mining, and the premium plan includes blockchain-based authentication and electronic signatures to keep your files complete.

However, its plan and storage are a little complicated, for instance, the basic version is .16 per month with 250GB cloud storage while the premium costs you .33 per month with 1TB backup space. If you need additional storage, you can pay for the advanced option, 500GB for another per year. And this is only available for one computer.

Backup Computer to Cloud Best Practice

To make it clear to you how to perform online computer backup, here we will show you how to backup computer to Google Drive with CBackup for example.

1. Please download the CBackup desktop app and create a new account, then sign in to this program.

2. Click the Storage tab on the left, select Google Drive to add, and then follow the steps to grant access to CBackup.

3. To backup PC to Google Drive, Select Backup > Backup PC to Public Cloud to create an online PC backup task.

4. Rename the Task Name, choose the computer files, and select Google Drive as the target location.

5. (Optional) Press Settings on the bottom left to configure schedule backup on daily, weekly, or monthly, email notifications even file filters, etc.

6. Then pitch on the Start Backup button to backup computer to cloud like Google Drive automatically and easily.

Besides, you could use CBackup to backup computer to OneDrive, Dropbox, etc. It's quite easy to operate the steps of online computer backup, just try it for free.

Final thoughts

Speaking of the best PC cloud backup, many users may think there is only one choice. But I want to say that the most suitable software is the best, so this depends on your own needs. Just see the above options and select the best cloud backup for PC and yourself.