Best Way to Backup PC to Cloud in Windows 10 or 11 (FREE)
- Why Backup PC to Cloud?
- Which Cloud Drive Is Suitable for You?
- Best Free Software to Backup Computer to Cloud
- How to Backup PC to Cloud in Windows 10 or 11 Automatically
- Conclusion
Why Backup PC to Cloud?
Nowadays, there are many cloud drives available for you to store data online and help you create PC cloud backup, including Google Drive, OneDrive, Dropbox, Box, Amazon Cloud Drive, and other clouds. Why backup computer to cloud? The following reasons could be one of yours:
- Reduce Cost: for personal use, your hard disk in Windows 7/8/10/11 shows low disk space error, and don’t intend to pay for another relatively expensive external storage device to save files. It’s affordable for business use especially there a large amount of data should be saved.
- Easy to Access: the files stored in the cloud are easy to access anytime and anywhere while the data in the Windows computer is kind of difficult to access from another device unless shared it on the same LAN.
- Multiple Guarantees: the offsite backup solution safeguards your data, even your computer damaged somehow, you could restore data from cloud to a new location to make it safe, you will not lose them.
- Automatic Backup: after you set a backup, it will automatically and continuously backup data to the cloud whenever you’re connected to the Internet.
Before creating a PC cloud backup, choosing a suitable cloud drive is much important for you.
Which Cloud Drive Is Suitable for You?
Here we will compare the most common cloud drives, including price and cloud storage, here are the charts for the cloud comparison.
For personal cloud storage, If you would like to use more free storage space, Google Drive for Desktop (Google One) will be your best choice. Or large amounts of efficient storage space with a affordable cost, then Dropbox will be your best fit.
|
Cloud Drive |
Personal Use |
|
|
Price |
Cloud Storage | |
|
Google Drive |
Free |
15 GB |
|
$19.99/Year |
100 GB | |
|
$29.99/Year |
200 GB | |
|
$99.99/Year |
2 TB | |
|
$1199.88/Year |
120 TB | |
|
$2399.88/Year |
240 TB | |
|
$3599.88/Year |
360 TB | |
|
Microsoft OneDrive |
Free |
5 GB |
|
$23.88/Year |
1.2 TB | |
|
Dropbox |
Free |
2 GB |
|
$119.88/Year |
24TB | |
|
$198.96/Year |
36 TB | |
|
Box |
free |
10 GB |
|
$120.00/Year |
100 GB | |
|
Amazon S3 Standard |
free |
5 GB |
| $0.023 per GB | First 50TB | |
For business cloud storage, these cloud drives provide you with more professional tools and services to manage business data as well. Hence, simply comparing their cloud storage space and price is relatively one-sided, and it should rely on your demands.
|
Cloud Drive |
Business Use |
|
|
Price |
Cloud Storage | |
|
Google Drive |
$6.00/month |
30 GB, 1 user |
|
$12.00/month |
unlimited cloud storage/1 TB, 1 user (1 TB per user if fewer than 5 users) |
|
|
Microsoft OneDrive |
$5.00/month |
1 TB, 1 user |
|
$10.00/month |
Unlimited cloud storage,1 user | |
|
Dropbox |
$12.5/month |
5 TB, 1 user |
|
$20.00/month |
Unlimited cloud storage,1 user | |
|
Box |
$5.00/month |
100 GB, 1 user |
|
$15.00/month |
Unlimited cloud storage,1 user | |
|
Amazon S3 Intelligent - Tiering |
$0.0025 per 1,000 objects | Monitoring and automation, all storage / month (Objects > 128 KB) |
| $0.023 per GB | Frequent Access Tier, First 50 TB / Month | |
After choosing the suitable cloud drives, Google Drive, Dropbox, or OneDrive, etc., then a free cloud backup software is required if you want the best way to backup PC to cloud drives.
Best Free Software to Backup Computer to Cloud
Almost cloud storage provides you with desktop apps, such as Google Backup and Sync, OneDrive, Dropbox desktop app, or Box Sync, to transfer files to online cloud storage, they cannot backup the entire hard disk, partition structures, and other critical data for Windows operating system.
In this case, you need the best free Windows cloud backup software - Qiling Disk Master Standard to backup PC to cloud drive like Google Drive. It’s designed for Windows XP, Vista, 7, 8, 8.1, 10, and 11 (all editions, 32-bit and 64-bit) and you can backup any items with a few clicks. Below are some useful features:
Complete backup solutions: This software not only supports backup file to Google Drive or other cloud drives, but also backup system, disk, and partition.
Schedule Backup: It allows you to backup files to cloud drive automatically, and you can run it daily, weekly, or monthly. More precisely, you can set backup date, time and intervals.
Incremental Backup: It is to backup only changed files in a backup task to save backup time and space once you enable scheduled backup.
Diverse storage devices: It not only supports backup PC to different cloud drives, but also to external hard drive (HDD or SSD), USB drive, network drive or NAS.
How to Backup PC to Cloud in Windows 10 or 11 Automatically
To backup computer to cloud successfully, please ensure you have the enough free space on your cloud drives to save the disk image, because the disk image maybe 40GB or more (depending on your data size on the source disk).
Before backup computer to Google Drive, Dropbox, or OneDrive, please get the free Windows cloud backup solution - Qiling Disk Master downloaded, then perform the program after installing it to backup efficiently. For server users, try Qiling Disk Master Server!
Now, let’s have a look how to backup PC to cloud easily and safely with the following steps (take backup computer to Google Drive for example):
1. Please go to Backup tab, and then choose Disk Backup to backup the entire PC.
Note: If you prefer to backup Windows system files, please try System Backup. And it will choose all the boot partitions and files automatically, so you don't need to worry about missing any files required for boot.
2. Click + Add Disk to choose the current system disk as source disk.
3. Choose Google Drive folder as the destination to save all files from your computer. You can also select desktop folder for other cloud drives.
Notes:
✍Google Drive folder is typically located in C:\Users\UserName\Google Drive (replace the UserName with your current user name, the following is the same).
✍OneDrive desktop folder is probably located in C:\Users\UserName\OneDrive.
✍Dropbox folder is located in C:\Users\UserName\Dropbox by default.
✍Box Sync folder located in C:\Users\UserName\AppData\Box Sync in general.
✍Apart from clouds, you could select one of the following devices as destination: local disk, external hard drives (HDD/SSD), USB flash drive, CD/DVD, NAS, etc.
4. Click the Schedule Backup option to set the disk backup to run daily, weekly, or monthly. Meanwhile, incremental backup is enabled by default, it will backup only changes since last backup.
Tips:
✍Schedule Backup: Except for basic settings, you still can use premium features (eg: Event triggers, and USB plug in) if you upgrade to Qiling Disk Master Professional or other advanced editions.
✍Options: It enables you to modify the backup image, like compress, split, encrypt, and comment on the backup image file, even enable email or SMS notification to get alert once the backup finished.
✍Backup Scheme (advanced version): It helps you manage your hard disk storage space in a scheduled backup task, which will delete old backup images automatically with selected cleanup methods to free up space and avoid backup disk full error. And you can set safter backup method - differential backup here as well.
5. Press Proceed >> to perform automatic backup PC to Google Drive easily and safely.
Wait for a moment, the cost time depends on the data capacity of the source disk. Then you can go to your Google Drive folder and webpage and check if there is a backup image in it.
If you are willing to backup data to cloud automatically, please try file backup or sync feature. Among them, real-time sync is the most complete way to keep data up-to-date.
Conclusion
It’s a piece of cake for you to backup PC to cloud drive, like Google Drive, Dropbox, OneDrive, Box, etc., as long as you find the best free way, and usually, it's a free backup software that supports schedule backup system, disk, partition or files. Qiling Disk Master Standard is one such software.
Besides, more advanced features in the premium edition, like event triggers, USB plug in (copy files from or to plugged-in USB automatically), differential backup, automatic backup cleanup to help you backup disk efficiently and flexibly.
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