We’ll help you choose the best online backup service.
Online backup is an essential hedge against physical data disaster. No matter if it’s a technical failure, an act of malice, or an act of nature, you never know when all the files and folders you have stored on your PC will be threatened.
While we always recommend keeping a local backup for quick restores (see our roundup of the best Windows backup software for desktop solutions), uploading your data to an online backup service can be a reliable way to cover your bases. After all, the “backup rule of three” exists for a reason.
The good news for consumers is that there are many commendable options, each offering unique selling points. Our primary concern here is backup, but we do note other roles that a service can fulfill, such as sharing capabilities, multi-device support, and emergency-restore options.
Why you should trust us: It’s in our name, PCWorld. Our reviewers have been testing PC hardware, software, and services for decades. Our backup evaluations are thorough and rigorous, testing the promises and limitations of every product — from performance to the practicalities of regular use. As PC users ourselves, we know what makes a product stand out. Only the best online backup services make this list. For more about our testing process, scroll to the bottom of this article.
You might wonder why you don’t see services like Google Drive, One Drive, or Dropbox here. Those are more accurately defined as cloud storage. Besides typically lacking a desktop client, and offering limited, if any, automatic backup functionality, online storage syncing involves mirroring — where any deletions or changes are reflected on the other end. While online backup uses versioning, so older data is retained — an important failsafe.
Updated May 21, 2024: Until recently, there was a hard distinction between backup software that lived on your PC and stored backups locally, and cloud backup. But those lines are blurring, as we discovered in our recent reviews of Aomei Backupper Pro, Acronis Cyber Protect Home Office, and R-Drive Image — all of which now incorporate cloud storage into their backup and sync solutions, giving consumers more choice and flexibility.
