Why Backup Hard Drive on Windows?

It is inevitable that the computer will fail after using it for a long time. In order to avoid data damage or loss, it is foolproof to do regular backups of your computer hard disk data. In this way, you can prevent all kinds of unexpected situations, such as:

• Virus attack
• Hard drive corruption
• Accidental deletion or formatting of files
• System crashes due to operational errors or malware intrusion
• Black screen of death or blue screen of death on Windows

How do I backup my entire hard drive in Windows 10? Here we will walk through several ways to backup hard drive on Windows 10. But before you start backing up, you need to know some possible solutions for hard drive backups.

Where to backup Hard Drive on Windows 10?

Various storage devices on the market can be used to save copies for your computer hard drive files. Let's take a look at some of the commonly used choices.

1. Back up to a local drive. Backing up hard drives to a local drive is an option for many Windows users. This is because it is simple and fast, and the computer local disk usually provides a large amount of storage space.

2. Back up to an external hard drive. External hard drives, such as USB flash drives, HDDs, SSDs, etc., have the advantage of being plug-and-go, and they are portable.

3. Back up to the cloud. Cloud drives are online storage devices that have become very popular in recent years. The data storage space of the cloud storage service can be expanded according to your demands. In addition, data stored in the cloud can be easily accessed using any internet-connected device.

2 Methods to Backup Hard Drive on Windows 10

If you want to backup hard drive to local disks or external hard drives, you can refer to solution 1. If you want to create cloud backup of hard drives, like backup C drive on Windows 10 to clouds, you can turn to solution 2 directly.

Solution 1. Backup hard drive with Backup and Restore

Windows 10 comes with a backup tool, Backup and Restore, which can be used to backup Windows computers, back up hard drive partitions, as well as some system files. With this tool, you can get hard drives back up to an external hard drive on Windows 10, as well as a local disk, or even a network drive.

We will illustrate how to backup hard drives to an external drive on Windows 10 in detail in the following.

Step 1. Enter “Control Panel” in the search box in the lower-left corner and open it. Click on the System and Security option and then Backup and Restore (Windows 7).

Step 2. Tap on the Set up backup button on the right.

Step 3. Select the location to save the backup and click Next.

Step 4. In the "What do you want to back up?" interface, select Let me choose > Click Next.

Step 5. Select the wanted hard disk partition for backup. You can also check the box next to Include a system image of drives EFI System Partition, (C:), Recovery to create hard drive images on Windows 10. Then, click Next.

Step 6. Confirm the backup location and content of the backup, and set or change the automatic backup schedule, then hit Save Settings and Run Backup to start the backup process.

Solution 2. Backup Hard Drive to Clouds with CBackup

If you want to back up your hard drive to a cloud drive, we recommend you use a professional cloud backup tool.

CBackup is a free cloud backup service that lets you backup individual files/folders, entire hard disk partitions (internal & external), and even whole computers to the cloud. Google Drive, OneDrive, Dropbox, and other popular cloud storage services are supported on this software. With it, backing up C drive to OneDrive is an easy task. Additionally, it also offers its own backup space, CBackup Cloud, giving 10GB of free storage.

This free backup tool uses an incremental backup method, which can help save your backup time and disk space. It offers scheduled backups to help you complete regular backups of your hard disk with ease. This excellent backup tool also provides cloud-to-cloud backup services. Next, we will show you how to backup external drive on Windows 10 using CBackup, and local disks as well.

Step 1. Apply for a CBackup account. Install CBackup and log in to it.

Step 2. Go to Backup and click the Backup PC to CBackup Cloud button.

Step 3. You can edit the Task Name. Pick the desired hard drive as source, then the CBackup Cloud will be selected by default.

Step 4. Finally, press the Start Backup button to execute the cloud backup of hard drives in Windows 10.

To back up hard drives to public clouds like Google Drive with CBackup:

1. First you need to go to Storage > Google Drive > Authorize Now. Then, finish the authorization to grant CBackup access to your cloud space.

2. Then click Backup > Backup PC to Public Cloud, then follow the steps to complete the backup task.

Bonus Tip: How to Gain More Free Cloud Storage with Ease

Since cloud drives may only provide a limited amount of free space, chances are you will face a shortage of storage space during backing up hard drives to public cloud storage services like Google Drive. In this case, you can use CBackup to increase cloud storage space for free.

CBackup allows you to combine unlimited accounts to get a huge or even unlimited cloud storage space for free. You can choose to combine all Google Drive accounts or combine Google Drive accounts with OneDrive accounts. Let's check the steps on how to easily gain more free cloud backup space:

Step 1. Sign in to CBackup desktop app. Click Storage and then + Add Cloud to add and authorize all your accounts to CBackup.

Step 2. Head to Storage, tap + Add Combined Cloud.

Step 3. Tick all the needed accounts and click Next > Combine. Then, your account will be merged successfully and the combined cloud will be listed in the Storage section.

Final Thoughts

These two reliable methods in this article can help you easily backup hard drives on Windows 10. For security reasons, backing up your hard drive on Windows 10 to an external hard drive or cloud drive is a better option.

If you choose a cloud drive for backup, don't forget that you can use CBackup to back up your hard drive data to multiple cloud storage platforms effortlessly. When necessary, you can set up PC automatic backups to ensure data security.