Best Or Cheapest Computer Backup
Online Hard Drive Backup to the "Cloud"
When it comes to online hard drive backup, the best program is the one that you used most recently when your hard drive fails! (Moral to the story: get started TODAY with a free trial if you have no backup at all currently.)
We personally do not like to refer to something as cheap if it is of good quality, but we have to please search engines so we will use that term in this post.
Understand that we will NOT recommend any online backup program that we feel is CHEAP in the sense that it is no good. If we say cheapest online hard drive backup we mean “least expensive” of what services we are willing to recommend.
As far as the various online backup services, choosing the best one can vary depending upon the features that are most valuable to you. All of these companies have workable software that is capable of selective online hard drive backup to include the data and media files important to you. Almost none of them concern themselves with system files, program files and that sort of thing.
Start With The Best Online Hard Drive Backup
Rather than concentrate on cheapest first, we thought a trip through the ones we consider the best would make more sense.
- IDrive online backup is our top rated program, and is not that expensive either. They offer a free 5GB account for life instead of just a free trial. The software is very full featured, they backup both external hard drives and network drives (mapped), but can be just a little bit more difficult to navigate all of the advanced features. We use it personally and love it.
- MyPCBackup is maybe not the best backup software but ranks highly because it is SIMPLE to use and just plain works. Besides that, it actually can be the CHEAPEST online hard drive backup if you follow our instructions here
- LiveDrive is one of the very popular cloud backup programs we have reviewed that users seem to be real happy with. The basic plan offers UNLIMITED cloud storage with lots of features, just not the whole arsenal of benefits provided by their advance packages. Upgrade to other features as your needs justify it.
- Mozy Home is a perennial favorite, but no one seems to talk about it that much. Maybe because it just works. Mozy is reasonably priced, have “caught up” with many of the other vendors when it comes to mobile apps, has great support – if you even need it, and offer a permanent 2GB free account.
This is not all of the programs available to you, as the sidebar indicates.
It really does depend on what is most important to you. The important thing is to at least get a free trial going so you can start protecting your files before you experience a hard drive failure.
One important feature of online hard drive backup is that you have off-site protection for your data. Something tragic happens to your home and your external USB hard drive backup is probably a goner along with your system. The area where I grew up is again experiencing record floods with many homes under water.
Heck, even in Texas where there were droughts (with wildfires that destroyed many homes, even entire towns) last year certain areas had massive flooding just the year before that.
A second great feature is the ability to access the files you backup online into the cloud from virtually any computer anywhere that has an internet connection.
Cheapest Online Hard Drive Backup
There are several ways of looking at the cheapest online hard drive backup, again, cheap meaning inexpensive and NOT junk.
First is the permanent free account. We mentioned up above both IDrive (5GB) and Mozy( 2GB). There are others, some with temporary offers like Zoolz, which is offering a unique “cold storage” 100GB free account, for a limited time.
The MyPCBackup special deal we mentioned above is going to be really hard to beat, but others are pretty darn cheap. One of the reasons IDrive is our top rated online backup program is because it’s so high quality and yet so inexpensive too.
Carbonite is another well known name with a quality product that USED to be unlimited but at least is still very cheap for 1 year of online backup.
Get Started!
Please, if you have no online hard drive backup now then please take a test drive of one of the ones we have mentioned here. The links to their free trials and/or free online backup accounts are on their respective review pages (see sidebar) or, here is the link for:
IDrive – our #1 pick, 5GB free account – click here
MyPCBackup – our #2 pick, cheapest – click here