I have somehow managed to live this long without ever suffering through a hard drive failure. I have never known anxiety at hearing a clicking platter drive or sudden horror at seeing my games, photos, and files simply vanish from an SSD. But I know that hubris could be my downfall, so I make sure that my most important files are backed up.
The best way to keep your files safe is with a local backup and a second backup in a safe, second location, such as in the cloud with an online backup service. Unlike cloud storage options such as Google Drive, online backup services automatically copy the contents of your hard drive, keep multiple versions of your files so that you can easily recover from a drive failure or an errant deletion, and can be fully encrypted. We think automatic online backups are a great idea, but all the services we tested cost too much, are a pain to use, and are in some cases questionably reliable. If you have a lot of large, irreplaceable files on your computer that are too cumbersome to back up yourself, IDrive is the best we’ve found.
Everything we recommend
Top pick
IDrive is easy to set up, and it backs up your files quickly. It offers flexible pricing, so you don’t overpay for storage you don’t need.
Best for
If you have large backups, Backblaze offers unlimited storage—with some limitations.
Budget pick
Arq Premium is a bit quirky, but it offers online backup at a fraction of the cost of competitors.
Top pick
IDrive is easy to set up, and it backs up your files quickly. It offers flexible pricing, so you don’t overpay for storage you don’t need.
For $100 a year, IDrive lets you back up as many computers as you need to and gives you 5 TB of online storage to do so. IDrive stores 30 versions of each file in your backup indefinitely, ensuring that you can easily roll back to the version you need. It’s also the only online backup service we tested that includes support for Linux in addition to macOS and Windows. No online backup service is perfect, and IDrive is no exception: It charges high overage fees and is in need of a visual redesign for both its app and its website. But IDrive’s flexible pricing and support for multiple computers makes it the best choice for most people.
Best for
If you have large backups, Backblaze offers unlimited storage—with some limitations.
For $100 per year, you get unlimited data storage for backing up a single computer. Backblaze retains versions of files for only 30 days, but you can extend that if necessary. It’s a good choice for anyone who has lots of large files to back up.
Budget pick
Arq Premium is a bit quirky, but it offers online backup at a fraction of the cost of competitors.
For $60 per year, Arq Premium provides 1 TB of storage space to back up five computers. Or you can pay $50 just once, provided that you buy online storage space somewhere else. Arq Premium’s advanced features can be a bit intimidating, and its lack of continuous backups may make it a nonstarter for some people.
