This article will introduce the 4 most popular personal cloud backups to you, and you can choose one of them based on your needs. Of course, step-by-step guides are also included.
By
Ivy
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Last Updated November 3, 2020
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Free Sign UpHaving a personal cloud backup of your important data is essential. Whether it’s photos, music, movies, thesis, or any work papers, they all deserve a safe backup plan simply because you never know what would happen to your PC, and when.
Why use personal online backup instead of local or external drive backup? Let’s get the basics. Both local drive and external drive will be affected by computer issues, such as system failure, hardware failure, virus, hacker, or other human error because it’s connected to your computer or will. In addition, natural disasters can also affect, for instance, a sudden fire. In a simple word, backing up data to either a local drive or external may result in data loss.
To avoid these problems, you should save your data to a place that is not affected by local or natural disasters. Specifically, you need to keep your data away from your home or office. And the clouds will be a great choice.
In the following, I’ll introduce you the most popular clouds, including Google Drive, OneDrive, Dropbox. With any of them, you can store photos, documents, videos, designs, etc, and these data will be transferred to all of your devices. In addition, you can access data anytime, anywhere. This is the basic requirements for all clouds.
Then, continue to see below and select the most suitable personal online backup.
Capacity: 15GB free and 100GB, 200GB for paid
Capacity expansion: 2GB for completing security checkup
Platform: Windows, Mac, Android, iOS
File upload limit: 5TB
Price: $2.99/month for 200GB, $9.99/month for 2TB, $99.99/month for 10TB, $199.99/month for 20TB and $299.99/month for 30TB
Features: store any files, file upload from any device, share files with anyone, save email attachments from Gmail
Integration: G Suit tools, Backup, and Sync desktop app
Google Drive is best for team and collaboration. Also, you can use it for individuals. It offers free users generous capacity, but space is also shared with other Google services including Gmail and Google Photos. To get more space without upgrading, you can complete the security checkup and you will get 2GB.
In addition to the basic features, Google Drive will offer users some integration feature, such as Google Backup and Sync desktop app, G Suit tools – Gmail, Drive, Docs, Sheets, Slides, Forms, Calendar, Google+, Sites, Hangouts and Keep, Google Backup and Sync desktop app. “Backup and Sync” make file uploading effortlessly, even for specific folders.
Capacity: 5GB free and 50GB, 1TB, 6TB for paid
Capacity expansion: office 365 subscription start at 1TB
Platform: Windows, Android, iOS
File upload limit: 15GB
Starting price: $1.99/month
Features: access files in offline mode, SSL encryption, easy file sharing, latest office application, edit files online without downloading,
Integration: Microsoft Office, Outlook, AutoCAD
Microsoft OneDrive is best for Windows users, especially Windows 10, because it greatly integrates with other Microsoft products, such as Microsoft Office – Word, Excel, PPT, Outlook, etc. Also, it allows you to edit files online without downloading.
For its capacity, every free user will get 5GB of cloud storage. If you want more space, you can subscribe to office 365 for an extra 1TB. Besides, you still can choose to upgrade to paid options, including 50GB, 1TB, 6TB.
Capacity: 2GB free and several paid option, 1TB, 2TB, 3TB for paid
Capacity expansion: 500MB for each referral and up to 16GB, 250MB for completing the “Getting Started guide, 1GB for Mighty Answer on Dropbox forum
Platform: Windows, Mac, Linux, Android, iOS, Windows phone,
File upload limit: unlimited
Starting price: $8.25/month for individuals and $12.5/user/month
Features: Dropbox paper, Dropbox Rewind, File Requests, 256-bit AES and SSL/TLS encryption, share any file like PowerPoint and Photoshop with anyone, anytime, anywhere access, free-trial for all editions
Dropbox is suitable for light data users because it only offers free user 2GB. But it gives you a chance to extend the capacity free of charge, including, invite your friends to join and get 500MB each referral, up to 16GB, complete the Getting Started guide for 250MB, provide “Mighty Answer” for the Dropbox forum and each answer get 1GB extra storage.
Besides the basic feature, store files, file sharing, and transfer, Dropbox also provides some useful features, such as Dropbox Paper, File Requests, Dropbox Rewind. Dropbox paper is a great collaborative working tool, which acts as a group workspace and its desktop app will automatically backup your photos. If you are interested in these features, you can try it.
Capacity: 1000GB
Platform: Windows 10, 8.1, 8, 7, XP
File transfer limit: No limitation
Price: 15-day free trial, $6.00/month for 1000GB, $60.00/year for 1000GB
Features: backup your files from Windows PC to its secure AOMEI Cloud restore your files at any time
CBackupper is a professional Windows PC cloud backup for personal users. It offers a stable and secure cloud server called AOMEI Cloud to keep your data safely and remotely. And you can restore backups in the AOMEI Cloud to the original or a different location at any time. What's more, the interface of CBackupper is very clear and the operation is very simple, you can figure it out quickly.
In addition, the paid plans for CBackupper is very reasonable. You can start with a 15-day free trial (1000 GB) and subscribe 1000 GB/month for $6.00 and 1000 GB/month for $60.00 only.
The above clouds have a commonly used way to do cloud backup for personal computers, it’s the desktop folder. The steps are very similar, you just need to download the corresponding software and backup files to cloud.
Here, I’ll take CBackupper as an example to show you the detailed steps in the following. You can use it as a reference.
Step 1. Download CBackupper PC client, create a CBackupper account first and then sign in to your account.
Step 2. Click on the Task tab and click on the New Task button.
Step 3. Click on Add Source and find the SD card folder on your computer and then look for the files on your SD card that you want to back up. After selecting, click Start Backup.
Note: There is a Setting button in the lower-left corner. You can click it to use the File Filter feature and Email Notification feature. The former can help you filter unwanted files, and the latter can set reminders of backup results.
As you can see from above, the space free of charge is limited, Google Drive is 15GB, OneDrive is 5GB and Dropbox is simply 2GB. Space will run out sooner or later, you can choose to upgrade to the paid option, or get more space by gathering all of your free cloud storage.
Here, I highly recommend the free web version of CBackupper, which can help you connect enough cloud storage on the CBackupper interface and CBackupper will automatically combine cloud storage. Let's see how to get more free storage space with CBackupper:
Step 1. Create an account and sign in. Just go to the main page of CBackupper, click “Sign up” at the upper right side, then type your email, password, and nickname.
Step 2. Add your personal clouds, even different accounts. Click the “Clouds” tab, click “Add Clouds” in the lower-left corner, select your clouds (here is Google Drive), and click “OK”. Then sign in your account, authorize CBackupper and allow it to see, edit, create and delete all of your Google Drive files.
Step 3. In the next window, modify the display name and allocate space for file backup. Then, click the checkbox before “Note: Please do not change the path directly in the third-party cloud disk, or modify or delete the backup file.” and click “OK”.
Now, you complete the entire process of adding cloud drives. To add more clouds, you just need to repeat the above steps. And you’d better change the default name to a unique one for distinguish.
Speaking of the best free personal cloud backup, Google Drive, OneDrive, Dropbox, CBackupper may be a great choice. But you need to select based on your own situation. In sum, Google Drive has more free space and suitable for Google users, OneDrive is best for Windows users and Dropbox for light data users. If the storage space of the cloud backup you chose is not enough, don't forget to get more space or unlimited space with the CBackupper web app.
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