Cloud Drive vs. External Hard Drive for Computer

Today, computers store so much of the user's important files and data so that users need a reliable solution to back up their data to keep it safe. When users choose a backup method, there are generally two common options: an external hard drive for computer backup and an online cloud backup drive for computer.

You can compare cloud drive vs. external hard drive in different aspects:

☛ For cost: Investing in an external hard drive is a one-off payment, but you cannot change the capacity size of the disk and recover lost files. But you can choose different cloud drive subscriptions in cloud drive according to your need and the cloud drive often provides a file recovery feature.

☛ For security: Most external hard drives do not have encryption. Anyone can easily access the files on your hard drive as long as they have access to your external drive. Cloud drive services generally provide users with multiple encryption features such as AES 128-bit or even 256-bit encryption, personal encryption keys, TLS protocols, and more to protect your data safety.

☛ For sharing and sync: External drives use traditional copy and paste for synchronization and sharing purposes. This can be very time and effort-consuming when you need to share and sync a large number of files. But many cloud drives offer online sharing and automatic synchronization features. Users can access these files from any device or even from different cloud drives.

7 Top Cloud Backup for Computer

After the above, you must have seen the great advantages of cloud backup drives for computer. To give you a better choice of the best backup drive for computer, we've rounded up the 7 top cloud backup software for you here. Please read on and learn more details about them.

• CBackup

• IDrive

• Degoo

• Acronis True Image

• Backblaze

• Carbonite

• CrashPlan

CBackup

CBackup is a professional backup software for Windows PC. With CBackup, you can back up files from PC to cloud fast, directly, and for free. It provides a safe and stable cloud server called CBackup Cloud. Once you sign up for a new account, you will get 10GB of free cloud storage. And once you back up files to CBackup, if your files are lost, CBackup will help you recover them to the original location or another location.

What’s more, CBackup has many other useful features like combined cloud storage, cloud to cloud backup, scheduled backup. With these features, you can expand your backup space for free, your files can be moved between different cloud drives easily, and your backup tasks can perform with a certain frequency you selected regularly.

Meanwhile, if CBackup free cloud storage cannot meet your need, you can pay for more cloud storage space. CBackup provides reasonable subscription plans, cheaper than most cloud backup drives in the market. And the software has a clear interface and easy-to-use.

IDrive

IDrive is a popular cloud backup software. It allows you to back up devices, containing computers, tablets, smartphones, and external drives, and you can see which files are stored from which system. If your computer is attacked by ransomware, you can recover the files backed in IDrive.

Each account will get 5GB of free cloud storage, and you can pay for different plans. The capacity is up to 5TB, costing $99.5 per year. What's more, IDrive provides features of snapshots, versioning and will not delete your data without your permission. So you do not need to worry about your files saved in it.

Degoo

Degoo is a reliable cloud backup service, using high security with zero-knowledge encryption. Degoo supports users to back up files, photos, and videos to it. It can be used on an unlimited number of mobile devices and one desktop device.

Degoo gives each new account 100GB of free cloud storage (5GB per referral). And if you need large backup space, you can pay $9.99 per month for 10TB cloud space. However, users need to be aware of your account status as your files can be deleted if you don't use it for 90 days.

Acronis True Image

Acronis True Image is a backup solution suitable for personal accounts and small enterprises. It can back up several computers and external hard drives. If you use Acronis True Image to set up a backup, it will send you a report containing the state of the backup.

However, Acronis True Image costs more than other cloud backup software. 5TB cloud storage space in it will cost $21.66 per month. And Standard plan doesn’t allow you to backup your data to the cloud, though, only to local storage.

Backblaze

Backblaze is also a popular cloud backup drive for computer in the market for its useful features, unlimited storage, fast backup, and attractive subscription plans. Your backup tasks in Backblaze can be performed automatically.

Meanwhile, Backblaze provides a computer location feature, which will be helpful when your computer gets lost. All your data in Backblaze will be protected. You can pay $6 per month for a great personal pricing plan.

Carbonite

Carbonite is an online backup software for Windows. It can help you back up files automatically, but when the size of the file is over 4GB, you need to add them manually. You do not need to worry about data security because Carbonite provides 128-bit/256-bit AES encryption at rest, private encryption, two-factor authentication.

Carbonite provides three unlimited backup plans for personal users. But the Basic can’t back up external drives. Before paying for a subscription plan, you can use its free 15-day trial for free.

CrashPlan

CrashPlan is an easy-to-use and popular cloud backup software. You can set up the backup schedule, frequency according to your need. CrashPlan has AES 256-bit encryption at rest, AES 128-bit encryption in transit, which will protect your data greatly.

With CrashPlan, you can control what files are backed up, when, and how often. However, the transfer speed of CrashPlan is slower than other cloud backup software and costs more at the same time. Though CrashPlan cannot back up some files in certain system folders, you are allowed to backup external hard drives.

Final Words

After looking through this page, we believe you can make a decision about the backup drive for computer. If you have difficulty in choosing, maybe you can try CBackup, which is cost-effective and convenient.