What is The Best Online Backup Service?

You should choose a reputed online backup service for backing up the computer as this is not only very convenient, but it will also ensure that the data is completely protected against unwanted events like fire outbreaks of thefts or calamities. You will come across many online backup services in the market. Crash Plan used to be more popular earlier but its services are no longer for home-users since 2017. While there are cloud computing solutions like Google Drive or DatabaGG which serve the same purpose, these are however different from some of the following online backup services as protection levels are far less.

Backblaze: Backblaze is considered to be an excellent cloud backup service when you wish to back up just a single computer. It costs about $50 annually for every personal computer or Mac which you want backed up. In exchange for this nominal amount, you can enjoy unlimited storage facilities for the backups. This service will back up all the data by default; you are free to include other data from external drives in the backup too. As there is no limitations on size, Backblaze can back up huge files. You can include your secure passphrase for the backups which means that the Backblaze employees cannot view data stored on their servers. You may log into the Backblaze account for downloading backups but this is time-consuming when there are huge volumes of data to be backed up. So, Backblaze can give you a "restore by mail" function whereby they will send you backups through flash drives or hard drives via FedEx.The only thing to remember is that these deleted files are stored by Backblaze only for 30 days after which they will be eliminated.

IDrive: IDrive is another excellent online backup service which is slightly costlier, about $70 annually for 2TB and $100 annually for 5TB. But, with IDrive, you are free to back up any number of computers. Therefore, when it is for a single machine, Backblaze is more useful as far as unlimited cloud storage goes. But, for multiple machines, IDrive is better suited. However, it does not give unlimited storage. At the same time, the amount of storage it offers is reasonably high; the only downside being that files greater than 10GB in size cannot be stored. You are free to use an encryption key which will keep the files encrypted and private even when these are restored on the IDrive servers. Data restoration is faster in this service and drives can be shipped to you through mail services. The advantage with this service is that your backed up files are going to be stored till the time you delete these manually.

Carbonite: This service is also quite popular and Crash Plan has partnered with this when it discontinued operations for its home users. It is similar to Backblaze and starts around $72 annually for one computer. You can upload files of all sizes; however, you need to select those over 4GB manually which is not advantageous. You get to have your secure passphrase only for Windows; so, it is not useful for Mac users. It also offers courier service for sending restored drives. Like Backblaze, Carbonite will also ensure that deleted files are removed from servers after 30 days.

Acronis True Image: This has always been a robust desktop backup service which backs up files to local hard drives and produces system image backups. You can choose from Premium or Advanced subscriptions and prices start around $50 annually for a single PC for 250 GB. So, while prices are same as Backblaze, storage is limited. You are however free to set up an encryption key for protecting backup files when these are stored on Acronis servers.