Best Backup For Mac Computer

Aiseesoft Fonelab iPhone Backup software is amongst the best Apple iPhone backup software’s partly thanks to the fact that it can backup files from iTunes, iCloud, and iOS devices. Apart from its compatibility with various iOS versions, this iPhone backup software can easily backup all the data in your phone including phone contacts, reminders, music, photo albums and videos in a couple of minutes. Best Backup Software for Macs. Now that we've discussed what to look for in Mac backup software, let’s look at the apps. Here are my picks for the best Mac backup software for 2018: 1. Time Machine. Time Machine is built into macOS and it should be your first go to as Mac backup software. Bottom Line: Carbonite is an easy-to-use online backup service that offers unlimited storage, but a license only covers a single computer and you can't use it to back up your mobile devices. The Seagate Backup Plus Slim is the most reliable hard drive you can carry around with you at all times. It is formatted for both Mac and Windows right out of the box, and its easy-to-use software can automatically do backups for you as often or as little as you want. Seagate also throws in a one-year complimentary subscription to Mylio Create. Carbonite is very similar to Backblaze in that it allows you to back up your Mac to remote servers and recover files when you need to.

1. Best External Backup For Imac
2. Best Backup For Mac Computers

iDrive Personal

IDrive is best for anyone who has multiple machines to back up. Just keep an eye on the 2TB or 5TB storage limit.

Backblaze

Backblaze is cheap, simple, fast and easy to use. But you might want to shop around if you have multiple machines to back up.

Acronis True Image

Acronis True Image is expensive and complicated, but it offers a wide range of options and features for hard-core PC users.

You may regularly back up your computer's data to an external hard drive — and if not, you should — but that really won't be enough. A cloud-backup service can help.

Both your PC and your local backup drive could be lost at the same time to theft, flood or fire. The best cloud backup services, also known as online-backup services, help you avoid such data disasters. They copy your valuable information to an offsite repository that never goes offline and is available from anywhere, preventing total catastrophe.

Based on more than 40 hours of testing, we think the best cloud backup service is IDrive ($13.90 for the first year for Tom's Guide readers), which backs up an unlimited number of PCs, Macs, smartphones and tablets for a reasonable price. IDrive is the best choice if you have multiple computers and phones to back up.

Our value pick is the very user-friendly Backblaze, which gives you unlimited storage space for just $60 per year, but backs up only one machine (and an attached external drive) per account. Backblaze is the best cloud backup service if you have a single computer and just want to back it up without worrying about the details.

News and updates

— For its 15th anniversary, Zoolz is offering very cheap cloud-backup plans to new customers. One terabyte of 'cold' storage now costs $19.95 per year, and 5 terabytes $49.95 per year. Those prices will not go up after the first year. However, these are for single users, and single computers, only; the multi-user plans for home users no longer seem to be offered.

— Backblaze has opened a new data center, aka server farm, in Amsterdam, the company's first data center outside of the United States. From now on, customers creating new Backblaze accounts can choose whether the data is stored in the 'US West' (Sacramento and Phoenix) or 'EU Central' regions. That selection will be permanent.

— Acronis has updated its True Image software to the 2020 version, adding a feature that can back up data to both the Acronis cloud and your local storage drive simultaneously to make sure your backups are never out of sync. The new software also has better power and Wi-Fi network management for laptop backups.

How we tested and rated the best cloud backup services

We took into consideration several factors: storage costs, ease of file restoration, computer-resource usage, unique features and ease of use and of installation. Upload speed also matters, because while your initial backup happens only once, the backup can take days or even weeks if it's several hundred gigabytes.

We give bonus points to those online-backup services that let you mail in a hard drive full of data to start the process or send you one to restore your data.

Our testing and evaluating was done on a 2017 15-inch Apple MacBook Pro booting into Windows 10. Mobile apps were run on a Google Pixel XL 2 running Android 8.1 Oreo. We monitored which quickly creates a bootable file-restoration tool.

The downsides are that Acronis can get expensive, has a confusing pricing structure and doesn't back up external or networked drives.

Other cloud backup services reviewed

SPECIFICATIONS

Number of devices: Up to 5 computers, but no volume discount Storage limit: Unlimited External drive backups: Not with basic plan Mobile device backups: No System and application backups: No Two factor authentication: Yes Drive shipping: Restore only

Reasons to Buy

Reasons to Avoid

Carbonite says it offers unlimited storage, but you'd better read the fine print, as it doesn't automatically back up large files, external drives, or any kind of video file, on its lowest pricing tier. To get those functions, you'll have to trade up to the point where Carbonite Safe is no longer competitive.

Multiple machines are supported on a single account, but each costs as much as the first. On the plus side, the software is attractive and easy to use.

SPECIFICATIONS

Number of devices: Unlimited Storage limit: 5TB External drive backups: Yes Mobile device backups: No System and application backups: Yes, but not by default Two factor authentication: Only for legacy users Drive shipping: No

Reasons to Buy

Best External Backup For Imac

Reasons to Avoid

SpiderOak was the first online-backup (or online-syncing) service to make sure the customer held a private, exclusive encryption key. Most other cloud backup services now offer the same thing, but SpiderOak also has strong file-sharing and -syncing features, as well as support for unlimited machines and, if you insist, backups of system files and applications.

Yet SpiderOak's storage-space pricing is so high that it's more competitive with Dropbox than it is with IDrive, and while its file-restoration speed was amazingly fast, its initial upload speed was glacial.

SPECIFICATIONS

Best Backup For Mac Computers

Number of devices: Up to 5 computers, but only 1 per user Storage limit: 4TB External drive backups: Yes Mobile device backups: No System and application backups: Yes, but not by default Two factor authentication: No Drive shipping: No

Reasons to Buy

Reasons to Avoid

Editor's note: Zoolz no longer offers cloud-backup service for consumers directly from its website, but does occasionally offer them through ads and social media. We're checking with Zoolz to see exactly what kind of cloud-backup solutions are available to home users.

Zoolz has a lot of features and an attractive, easy-to-use interface. The service permits multiuser accounts, lets you back up applications and system files and, at least at the time of this writing, is appealingly priced.

But its Achilles' heel is that the Zoolz storage servers are just rented space on Amazon's Glacier cloud service, which is agonizingly slow to access. It doesn't help that the Zoolz mobile apps are next to useless.

Online backup vs. online syncing vs. online storage

Cloud-backup services aren't the same as online-syncing services like Dropbox, Google Drive, iCloud or OneDrive. An online-syncing service creates a cloud-based mirror of a specific set of files or folders on your device, and pushes out identical copies of those files to all of your linked devices so that you can have immediate access to them.

Cloud-backup services are simpler. They continuously or periodically copy all or most of the files and folders on your computer to their own cloud servers. Your data stays on those servers until you need it, and with luck, you never will. Most cloud-backup services offer generous amounts of storage for a subscription fee that is much cheaper, gigabyte for gigabyte, than an online-syncing service.

Cheapest of all are cloud-storage services such as Box or Google Cloud. These let you offload files you don't immediately need to online servers, freeing up space on your hard drive. These can be dirt-cheap, sometimes as little as a few pennies per month per gigabyte, but there's often a fee to download files again. (The assumption is that you will never need to download all the files.) Backblaze has its own very affordable cloud-storage service called B2.

Encryption and differences

All of the cloud-backup services we tested in 2018 — Acronis True Image, Backblaze, Carbonite Safe, IDrive Personal, SpiderOak One and Zoolz Cloud Backup — protect your data with industry-standard encryption. They also let you encrypt your data yourself with your own private key before uploading the data, although only SpiderOak makes this the default option. (But if you lose your private key, the cloud-backup service can't recover your data.)

Otherwise, cloud-backup services can vary greatly. Some let you back up system files and applications, some back up smartphones and tablets as well as hard drives, some provide software to back up to a local drive, some let you share files with other people, and some even provide file-syncing or dead-storage functions.

But while a couple of online-backup services let you back up an unlimited number of devices, and a few others give you unlimited online storage space, none gives you unlimited space for unlimited devices.

Everyone loses data at some point in their lives. Your computer’s hard drive could fail tomorrow, ransomware could hold your files hostage, or a software bug could delete your important files. If you’re not regularly backing up your computer, you could lose those files forever.

Backups don’t have to be hard or confusing, though. You’ve probably heard about countless different backup methods, but which one is right for you? And what files do you really need to back up?

It’s All About Your Personal Data

Let’s start with the obvious: what do you need back up? Well, first and foremost, you need to back up your personal files. You can always reinstall your operating system and redownload your programs if your hard drive fails, but your own personal data is irreplaceable.

Any personal documents, photos, home videos, and any other data on your computer should be backed up regularly. Those can never be replaced. If you’ve spent hours painstakingly ripping audio CDs or video DVDs, you may want to back those files up, too, so you don’t have to do all that work over again.

Your operating system, programs, and other settings can also be backed up. You don’t have to back them up, necessarily, but it can make your life easier if your entire hard drive fails. If you’re the type of person that likes to play around with system files, edit the registry, and regularly update your hardware, having a full system backup may save you time when things go wrong.

The Many Ways to Back Up Your Files

There are many ways to back up your data, from using an external drive to backing up those files on a remote server over the Internet. Here are the strengths and weaknesses of each:

• Back Up to an External Drive: If you have an external USB hard drive, you can just back up to that drive using your computer’s built-in backup features. On Windows 10 and 8, use File History. On Windows 7, use Windows Backup. On Macs, use Time Machine. Occasionally connect the drive to the computer and use the backup tool, or leave it plugged in whenever your home and it’ll back up automatically. Pros: Backing up is cheap and fast. Cons: If your house gets robbed or catches on fire, your backup can be lost along with your computer, which is very bad.

• Back Up Over the Internet: If you want to ensure your files stay safe, you can back them up to the internet with a service like Backblaze. Backblaze is the well-known online backup service we like and recommend since CrashPlan no longer serves home users, but there are also competitors like Carbonite and MozyHome. For a low monthly fee (about $5 a month), these programs run in the background on your PC or Mac, automatically backing up your files to the service’s web storage. If you ever lose those files and need them again, you can restore them. Pros: Online backup protects you against any type of data loss–hard drive failure, theft, natural disasters, and everything in between. Cons: These services usually cost money (see the next section for more details), and the initial backup can take much longer than it would on an external drive–especially if you have a lot of files.

• Use a Cloud Storage Service: Backup purists will say this isn’t technically a backup method, but for most people, it serves a similar enough purpose. Rather than just storing your files on your computer’s hard drive, you can store them on a service like Dropbox, Google Drive, Microsoft OneDrive, or a similar cloud storage service. They’ll then automatically sync to your online account and to your other PCs. If your hard drive dies, you’ll still have the copies of the files stored online and on your other computers. Pros: This method is easy, fast, and in many cases, free, and since it’s online, it protects you against all types of data loss. Cons: Most cloud services only offer a few gigabytes of space for free, so this only works if you have a small number of files you want to back up, or if you’re willing to pay for extra storage. Depending on the files you want to back up, this method can either be simpler or more complicated than a straight-up backup program.

While backup programs like Backblaze and cloud storage services like Dropbox are both online backups, they work in fundamentally different ways. Dropbox is designed to sync your files between PCs, while Backblaze and similar services are designed to backup large amounts of files. Backblaze will keep multiple copies of different versions of your files, so you can restore the file exactly as it was from many points in its history. And, while services like Dropbox are free for small amounts of space, Backblaze’s low price is for as big a backup as you want. Depending on how much data you have, one could be cheaper than the other.

Backblaze and Carbonite do have one big limitation you should keep in mind. If you delete a file on your computer, it will be deleted from your online backups after 30 days. You can’t go back and recover a deleted file or the previous version of a file after this 30 day period. So be careful when deleting those files if you might want them back!

One Backup Isn’t Enough: Use Multiple Methods

RELATED:You’re Not Backing Up Properly Unless You Have Offsite Backups

So which should you use? Ideally, you’d use at least two of them. Why? Because you want both offsite and onsite backups.

“Onsite” literally means backups stored at the same physical location as you. So, if you back up to an external hard drive and store that at home with your home PC, that’s an onsite backup.

Offsite backups are stored at a different location. So, if you back up to an online server, like Backblaze or Dropbox, that’s an offsite backup.

Onsite backups are faster and easier, and should be your first line of defense against data loss. If you lose files, you can quickly restore them from an external drive. But you shouldn’t rely on onsite backups alone. If your home burns down or all the hardware in it is stolen by thieves, you’d lose all your files.

Offsite backups don’t have to be a server on the Internet, either, and you don’t have to pay a monthly subscription for one. You could back up your files to a hard drive and store it at your office, at a friend’s house, or in a bank vault, for example. It’d be a bit more inconvenient, but that’s technically an offsite backup.

Spyder 3 elite download. Clicking on the Download Now (Visit Site) button above will open a connection to a third-party site. Download.com cannot completely ensure the security of the software hosted on third-party sites. Select your required download and click on the download link above. Download spyder 3 elite software for free. System Utilities downloads - Spyder3Elite by Datacolor and many more programs are available for instant and free download.

Similarly, you could also store your files in Dropbox, Google Drive, or OneDrive and performing regular backups to an external drive. Or you could use Backblaze to back up online and Windows File History to create a local backup. There are a lot of ways to use these services in tandem, and it’s up to you how to do it. Just make sure you have a solid backup strategy, with onsite and offsite backups, so you have a wide safety net against ever losing your files.

Automate It!

All that may sound complicated, but the more you automate your backup system, the more frequently you’ll be able to back up and the greater the odds you’ll stick with it. That’s why you should use an automated tool instead of copying files to an external drive by hand. You can just set it up once, and forget it.

That’s one reason we really like online services like Backblaze. If it’s backing up to the internet, it can automatically do that every single day. If you have to plug in an external drive, you have to put in more effort, which means you’ll back up less often and you may eventually stop doing it. Keeping everything automatic is well worth the price.

If you don’t want to pay anything and want to primarily rely on local backups, consider using a file-syncing service like Dropbox, Google Drive, or Microsoft OneDrive to synchronize your important files online. That way, if you ever lose your local backup, you’ll at least have an online copy.

Ultimately, you just need to think about where your files are and ensure you have multiple copies at all times. Ideally, those copies should be in more than one physical location. As long as you’re actually thinking about what you’ll do if your computer dies, you should be way ahead of most people.

Image Credit: Mario Goebbels on Flickr

• › Wi-Fi vs. ZigBee and Z-Wave: Which Is Better?
• › What Does “FWIW” Mean, and How Do You Use It?
• › How to Automatically Delete Your YouTube History
• › What Is “Mixed Content,” and Why Is Chrome Blocking It?
• › How to Manage Multiple Mailboxes in Outlook