Quick answer: cloud backup and cloud storage solve different problems. Storage and sync services like Google Drive keep files accessible across devices; backup services like Backblaze and IDrive keep restorable, versioned copies that survive deletion, corruption and ransomware. Sync is not backup, because sync faithfully replicates damage. A real protection plan follows the 3-2-1 rule: three copies of your data, on two different media, with one offsite. This guide covers the services, the setups and the costs. Figures last checked July 31, 2026.
Backup vs sync vs storage: the difference that matters
Cloud storage is a remote drive: you put files there and fetch them anywhere. Sync keeps a folder identical across devices. Backup takes scheduled snapshots of your data and keeps versions over time. The distinction shows up in failure. Delete a file locally and sync deletes it everywhere within seconds. Let ransomware encrypt your documents and sync uploads the encrypted versions over the good ones. A backup service holds yesterday’s snapshot and last month’s, so you roll back to the moment before the damage. Most sync services offer limited version history as a partial safety net; dedicated backup makes deep versioning the core product.
What failure actually looks like
Drives die without warning, roughly in line with the annualized failure rates Backblaze publishes from its own fleet each quarter. Laptops are stolen, houses flood, and the most common cause of loss is still human error: the wrong folder deleted, the wrong drive formatted. Ransomware adds a deadline and a demand. Each scenario defeats a different weak protection: theft defeats local-only backups, sync defeats itself on deletion and encryption, and a single external drive defeats you the day it fails alongside the computer. Only layered copies cover the full list, which is what 3-2-1 formalizes.
Backblaze Personal: unlimited, one computer
Backblaze Personal backs up one computer, external drives included, with no capacity cap, for a flat fee of about $9 per month or $99 per year at our last check. It runs continuously in the background, keeps version history, and its standout restore option ships your data to you on a physical drive, with a refund if you return it. The one-computer scope is the pitch and the limit: simple, unbeatable value for a single machine with a lot of data, but every additional computer needs its own license and it does not cover NAS devices.
IDrive: one pool, every device
IDrive flips the model: a storage pool, 5 TB or 10 TB, shared across unlimited computers, phones and NAS devices, at roughly $2.00 per TB per month on annual billing with aggressive first-year discounts. It adds true snapshot restore points, drive shipping in both directions, and NAS-native apps that Backblaze lacks. The tradeoff is a capacity meter to manage and apps that feel busier. For a household of devices or anyone with a NAS, IDrive covers what Backblaze structurally cannot.
Carbonite and CrashPlan
Carbonite offers unlimited single-computer backup at a noticeably higher price than Backblaze, with automatic video backup and full external drive support reserved for higher tiers, and historically slower restores. CrashPlan targets professionals and small business with per-device pricing, unlimited storage, and the deepest retention controls in the group, including indefinite version history if configured. Neither beats Backblaze on simple value; both survive on specific strengths, Carbonite on brand and bundles, CrashPlan on retention policy control.
Building 3-2-1 at three budgets
Minimal, about $99 per year: your computer, a $60 external drive with the OS’s built-in backup tool, and Backblaze Personal as the offsite copy. Standard, about $200 per year: add a second rotation drive kept away from home, or step up to IDrive 5 TB to cover phones and a partner’s laptop in the same pool. Serious, $400 and up: a 2-bay NAS in mirror for local snapshots of every device, replicating nightly to Backblaze B2 at $6.95 per TB. The NAS handles fast local restores; B2 is the fire-and-theft copy. Whichever tier, the test is the same: can you restore a file from last Tuesday after your main drive is gone? If yes, you have backup. If no, you have hope.
When storage plans are enough
If everything you care about lives in a synced cloud folder, your provider keeps 30 days of versions, and your phone photos upload automatically, then Google One or iCloud plus one local copy approximates 3-2-1 for light data. The approximation breaks with large local data, anything a sync client does not watch, or retention needs beyond the version window. That is the line where a dedicated backup service stops being optional.
Cloud backup FAQ
Is Google Drive a backup?
Not by itself. It is storage with sync and limited version history. It protects against a dead laptop, but a deletion or ransomware encryption syncs everywhere, and versions expire. Pair it with a local copy or a backup service for real protection.
Backblaze or IDrive?
One computer with unlimited data: Backblaze. Multiple devices or a NAS sharing one plan: IDrive. They are the two best answers to two different questions.
How often should backups run?
Continuously or daily for active work, and the schedule matters less than the test: restore a random file quarterly. An unverified backup is a rumor.
Versioning and retention: the settings that matter
Version history is the mechanism that turns a copy into a backup, and its depth varies enormously. Sync services typically keep 30 to 180 days of versions depending on plan; dedicated backup services keep longer histories, and CrashPlan can be configured for indefinite retention. The scenario that tests retention is not dramatic ransomware but quiet corruption: a file damaged months ago, faithfully backed up in its damaged state ever since. Shallow retention means every good version has aged out by discovery. When configuring any service, find the retention setting, know its window, and lengthen it for irreplaceable data. When comparing services, treat retention depth as a first-class spec alongside price, because it is the spec you will care about most on the worst day.
Restore speed: the test everyone skips
Backup is judged at restore time, and restore has a bandwidth problem: pulling 2 TB down a 100 Mbps connection takes roughly two days of saturated line, and residential upload speeds make the original backup slower still. This is why drive shipping matters more than it sounds: Backblaze and IDrive will both courier your data on a physical drive, turning a week of downloading into a delivery. Before trusting any service with your only offsite copy, restore something real: a 10 GB folder, timed. The result calibrates your expectations and occasionally reveals that a cheap service’s restore path is where the cheapness lives.
Phones and cloud accounts need backup too
Two blind spots round out a real plan. Phones: camera rolls are for many people the most irreplaceable data they own, and platform backups to iCloud or Google One cover them well, provided the free tier has not silently filled and stopped backing up months ago; check the last successful backup date today. Cloud accounts themselves: mail, documents and photos living only in one provider’s ecosystem are one account lockout from gone. Exports, or tools like Google Takeout, pulled to local storage or object storage annually apply the 3-2-1 principle to the cloud itself. The offsite copy of your cloud is your house; the logic runs both directions.
Encryption and who can read your backups
Every service here encrypts data in transit and at rest, but the question that separates them is key custody: who can decrypt. Standard-model services hold the keys, which enables web restores and password recovery, and also means the provider can technically access content and must comply with legal process. Backblaze and IDrive both offer an optional private key, and CrashPlan offers custom key options, shifting to a zero-knowledge posture where a forgotten passphrase means unrecoverable data, permanently, with no support ticket that can help. The choice is a real tradeoff rather than a checkbox: convenience and recoverability against confidentiality. A sane default is standard mode for the bulk backup and a separately encrypted container, or a zero-knowledge storage tier like the ones on our free storage page, for the narrow set of files where confidentiality outranks recoverability. Decide per data class, not per slogan, and write the passphrase down somewhere physical if you go private-key; the most common cause of unrecoverable backups is not breach but forgetting.