Then you pick which files you want to back up. To get started, click Add backup, and Duplicati will take you through the process of setting up an account at a cloud storage provider and entering your login credentials. Another option I tested is Acronis True Image, which is not as cheap and is Windows-only but does a great job of automating your backups. The iDrive software isn’t quite as simple as Backblaze, but it offers additional features-like keeping deleted files indefinitely-that more advanced users might like. Other options include iDrive, which offers 5 terabytes of storage at $59 for the first year, $70 per year after that. The company retains each version of your file for 30 days, though you can increase that if you pay a little more. Backblaze works on both Windows and macOS, and the default settings will do a good job of backing up your data. If you don’t want to pay the $70 upfront, you can pay $7 a month. For $70 a year you can get unlimited storage for one machine. This is what we suggest for newcomers.Īfter testing a dozen backup services like this, I found Backblaze offers the best all-in-one backup-a good combination of features, price, and reliability. Some are all-in-one: You sign up, download the service’s app, and you’re done. You copy the file to the backup and then it’s never touched again.įortunately, there are plenty of cloud backup solutions available. That means if a file becomes corrupted, the corruption is then sent to Dropbox and cascades through all your backups. When you change a file on your computer, those changes are then synced to Dropbox. Those are all great ways to share and sync documents, but they aren’t good for backups. What you don’t want is something like Dropbox, Google Drive, or. (Yes I had a surge protector it pretty much liquefied.) But since my data was backed up to the cloud, I was able to get everything back. For example, I once lost a laptop to a lightning strike. This is a backup that covers that awful scenario of physical destruction. Of course, that is just another way of saying “on someone else’s computer.” In this case, I mean a server in a data center far from your home. The second backup I suggest is off-site, or in “the cloud,” as marketing departments call it. While File History works quite well in my testing, and can take the place of something like Time Machine if you go through and set it up for every folder you need to back up, Windows still doesn’t really have a utility like Time Machine. A WIRED reader tipped me off to the File History features in Windows, which performs automatic incremental backups on any folder you designate. Windows 11 offers Windows backup, which will back up most of your personal data to your Microsoft account, but it isn’t intended to fully restore your system, should a hard drive fail. Time Machine is smart too it will only back up files that have changed, so it won’t eat up all your disk space. Apple has good instructions on how to set up Time Machine so it will make daily backups to your external hard drive. It’s a wonderfully simple piece of software and possibly the best reason to buy a Mac. These days there is software that can automate all of your backup tasks. If you have to make a backup, you probably won’t. If you don’t mind a larger form factor, there’s a Western Digital 8-terabyte “desktop” version that’s not much more ( $155 at Amazon).Ī good backup system runs without you needing to do a thing. I like this 5-terabyte model ( $110 at Amazon, $108 at Best Buy), which will back up this very article later tonight (it’s backed up to the cloud as I type, more on that in a minute). Several of us here on the Gear team have had good luck with Western Digital hard drives. In my case, the company replaced the drive without question.Įven within brand names, though, some drives are better than others. What you get by sticking with the brand names is good customer service. I had a big brand-name drive fail on me recently, and it was only four months old. That said, I suggest sticking with known names like Seagate, Western Digital, and Hitachi. Unfortunately, what really jumps out of that data is that longevity varies more by model than by manufacturer. Backblaze, a backup company that currently stores more than 1 exabyte of data, and therefore has considerable experience with hard drives, periodically publishes its drive statistics, which have some helpful numbers to consider. If you want something small, see our guide to portable hard drives (which don’t require external power). The hardest thing about this step is figuring out which hard drive to buy.
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