Online backup: For business, home & office. 100% secure, infinite storage. Anytime / Anywhere PC, Mac, iPhone/ iPad. Start free trial today. Jul 26, 2019  Since one can access the information from the cloud almost anywhere, it is ideally recommended to backup Mac to iCloud in a timely manner. Part 2: How to Backup Mac System and Files While performing the backup operation, you can either take the backup of your entire system or selectively make the copy of your important files. System backup. To upgrade your iCloud storage, open System Preferences on your Mac and choose iCloud. At the bottom, click Manage Now click Buy More Storage or if you’ve already purchased a plan and need more, click Change Storage Plan. Choose from the available pricing and storage options.

When it comes to backing up their data, many Mac OS users think, first of all, about the Time Machine.

This is a built-in tool that allows the user to backup information and performs this action regularly.

However, it is not a perfect instrument. Relying only on it can have disastrous consequences for you.

Every Mac OS user must think about additional steps to protect their important data.

Let’s review some alternative solutions for backing up data for this operating system.

Could you tell us about your experience of cloud backup services for mac in the comment section?

Top 4 best cloud backup services for Mac 2019

1. IDrive

Pricing: 5 GB for free, $69.50 for 2 TB, $99.50 for 5 TB.

IDrive is a powerful cloud backup service to save all your important files and restore them at any time. You can use an unlimited number of devices with one account so you can protect all your computers without additional expenses.

It is a useful feature if you are going to protect the devices of each family member or use it in a company.

Maybe it is not as user-friendly as some other competitors, but it offers the solid solution and reliable uptime. Due to limited cloud storage, you will have to select the folders to back up manually.

It is quite boring the first time you do it, but then the application works smoothly and does not disturb you much. A great option is that IDrive does not have any default folders — you are able to choose any from your Mac computer.

The application is highly customizable — you are able to configure the backup schedule. In addition, you are able to use the app to back up the files on the local driver, without uploading them to remote servers.

Moreover, you can use it without the schedule. In that case, the application will update the backup files within 15 minutes from when you changed them the last time.

IDrive provides the 256-bit AES encryption protocol and allows using the personal encryption key. This makes the service very reliable, secure and protected.

• Very easy to set up and use.
• No device limitations — you can use any number of them.
• Integration to Finder.
• Easy syncing of files and folders.
• Affordable prices.
• Disk images back up.
• Saves several versions of files.
• Bulk restores and uploads.

• Not the best performance.
• No unlimited storage plans.
• Keeps limited versions of files.
• Only email two-factor authentication

2. Acronis True Image

Pricing: Standard — $49.99 one-time purchase, Advanced — $49.99 per year, Premium — $99.99 per year.

Acronis True Image allows Mac users to take advantage of advanced data security features to protect sensitive information from natural disasters, theft or damage to their computer while maintaining a complete system image in a secure remote storage.

By combining best-in-class local backup on pluggable storage media, users can be sure that the complete system image, including all applications, files, settings, and bookmarks, will be reliably protected.

Acronis True Image’s simple and intuitive graphical interface allows users to backup and restore, using saved data, easier than ever.

With desktop and mobile applications, including iOS and Android support, data backups can be accessed and restored anywhere, anytime, for any computer.

Main features of Acronis True Image

• Full and incremental backup of the system on local storage media and in the Acronis Cloud — double protection for the entire system in case the local copy is damaged, lost or stolen.
• Backup data, individual files, and folders — both in the cloud and in the local storage.
• Incremental cloud recovery — fast recovery of the entire system, without the need for local storage.
• The Try & Decide feature allows you to create secure, controlled, and temporary workspaces on your computer without the need to install special virtualization software. You can safely install new software, visit suspicious sites, and open questionable files.
• Secure Cloud Storage — users can upload their most important data and have access to it from anywhere in the world.
• Acronis Active Protection. An extortioner is a malicious program that encrypts files and asks you to pay for decryption. Acronis Active Protection prevents unauthorized modification of files by ransomware in local and cloud storage.
• Certified backups. Acronis Notary with Blockchain technology ensures that the saved file remains unchanged since the backup is created.
• Acronis Asign offers fast and reliable certification of files using an electronic The authenticity of the files is guaranteed unchanged with publicly checked entries in the Blockchain registry.
• Increased safety and convenience of work. Strong encryption for mobile backups and Facebook data, restore content to your Facebook account, view mobile content and more.

• Intuitive user-friendly interface.
• Great upload speed and overall performance.
• Backup to the cloud and local drives.
• Backup and restore the selected folders or the full disk image.
• Access to files from anywhere.
• Blockchain-based data verification.

• Expensive plans.
• No password protection for shared files.

3. Backblaze

Pricing: $5 per month, $50 per year, $95 for 2 years. You have to pay for every computer connected.

This service is considered to be the best by many specialists. It definitely provides a great user experience and feature-rich and highly customizable application for Mac and other devices.

The best feature that makes it different from any other competitor is the unlimited cloud backup storage. You will never think about what files to backup and which folder to sync.

You can easily store the whole operating system with all the user files. In addition, Backblaze configures the backup copies automatically — you do not have to do it manually. Moreover, the unlimited storage includes the external data drives.

Backblaze provides the highest level of protection and security. Before being transferred to the remote server, the files are protected by the AES 128-bit encryption. The transferred files are protected with TLS which is considered uncrackable.

If you have any questions about using this service, you can get informative technical support that is available via email, online live chat or rich knowledge database.

Don’t forget to read our complete Backblaze review.

• Unlimited backup storage.
• Very easy to set up and use.
• Powerful security features.
• Ability to find a stolen device.
• Ability to restore the data via the mailed
• Very affordable price.

• No integration to Finder.
• No automatic upload from mobile devices.
• No free pricing plans.

4. Carbonite

Pricing: one computer from $6/month, multiple computers from $24/month, computers + servers

from $50/month.

Carbonite is a powerful backup tool that works in automatic mode. Once you set up and configure the app, it will not disturb you. You will be able to restore the backup files automatically, without the need of manual manipulations.

The service is very secure and protected. It uses the 128-bit AES and TLS encryption which switches to AES 256-bit while using the personal encryption keys.

• Unlimited online storage for Mac users.
• Integration into Finder.
• Continuous backup feature.
• Easy installation.
• Affordable prices.
• Reliable protection and security.

• Slow online interface.
• No external drives or videos pick up in the basic
• No free tariff plans.
• Desktop client does not provide the file tree feature.
• No collaboration and sharing features.

What is an ideal backup strategy?

The ideal backup strategy must consist of not less than two separate schedules, one of which must use a remote drive. So, if like most users, you backup your data using Time Machine, think about using an additional alternative tool to save the copies to another drive.

The most obvious solution is a special backup application. Be prepared to pay for it, as a good product cannot be completely free.

How do these apps work? Some of them just create clones of the hard drive and save them somewhere. Other products regularly take system snapshots.

Another category allows synchronizing the folders on your computer with a remote drive or computer. You can configure the schedule to avoid data loss and simplify the restoring process.

And of course, there are online services. They provide their drives for you to store your backup data. They regularly upload the backup files of your system and keep them for a certain amount of time, usually from several days to several weeks.

After the first copy, the application uploads only the changed files in order to save you time and connection bandwidth. You are also able to configure the maximum bandwidth the application can use.

This is a very useful feature especially when you do not have a very fast internet connection.

Why should you use online backup services?

Online backups are very user-friendly but they raise many privacy concerns. Thus, the choice of service and uploading your data to it is extremely important.

Pros:

• Professional infrastructure offers the best possible protection against data loss.
• With increasing data volumes, storage can be quickly expanded.
• No binding to the device or place: offers safety even if the device is lost or if there is a fire in the house.

Cons:

• You must trust the service — a certain skepticism is especially necessary regarding some American providers.
• The speed and efficiency largely depend on the available internet connection speed.
• Monthly expenses and difficulties in changing the provider in case of further price increases.

Cloud backup is stunningly comfortable

We cannot say that the concerns of many users about uploading their data to other servers are groundless, especially if the servers are located in the US or elsewhere and it is not clear who has or can access them.

In addition, effective work with cloud storage is possible only with a fast connection to the Internet and download speeds of at least 5 Mbit per second, something that is still impossible in many places.

On the other hand, how tempting is the idea of transferring the concerns about storing files to professional computer centers, being able to access this information from anywhere in the world and conveniently share it with others?

This dilemma has two ways of being solved: either you find a provider promising maximum confidentiality (and paying for their services), or you encrypt your data yourself before uploading it to the cloud.

When will the cloud backup be the most efficient tool?

Hard drive failure

Any drive (HDD, SSD, flash drive) can fail at the most important moment. Recently, the traditional hard drives have begun to fail more and more often.

We will not be discussing the reasons for the failure of the HDDs in this article — just keep in mind that if your Mac is quite old, it can fail at any moment. In recent years, Apple has been using only SSD drives but there is no guarantee that these will not fail as well. The same applies to flash drives and any storage media.

Many Mac users have old HDDs and DVDs that have been working perfectly for many years and, at the same time, there are HDDs and DVDs that have failed very soon. Nothing is perfect.

Viruses

Another reason why you may lose your data is due to viruses — they can delete or encrypt your files without the possibility of recovery. A lot of people think that the Mac OS is completely protected from viruses. However, there are a lot of situations when it becomes the target of perpetrators.

And, although lately cyber-attacks are more aimed at various organizations, the computers of ordinary users are also under threat.

User errors

Very often, files are lost as a result of user errors: accidental deletion of files, formatting of a disk or flash drive, errors in copying files, namely the incorrect use of the cut/paste function and much more. Because of these errors, both the source and backup files may be affected.

Failure of the file system

One of the reasons for losing files can be file system errors. As a result, the data on such a disk becomes not readable — the system simply does not see it.

Loss/deletion of a data partition

Sometimes, as a result of disk partition management programs, you can lose entire disk partitions.

This can occur either due to errors during partition conversion or due to user errors, for example, when deleting the wrong partition.

The right choice of cloud backup service

Many users still confuse cloud backup services and cloud storage services. Yes, they are quite similar as you are able to store your files using a provider’s resources.

Of course, you can use the traditional cloud storages to save your important data manually but in this article, we refer to the professional automatic solutions.

What should you remember when choosing the best backup provider? For everyone, the most important question is the price and security.

Remember that a good product cannot be provided for free. If the company offers great conditions and does not charge the users, most probably they have some confidentiality issues.

For example, they can have the right to use your content for their purposes. Are you ready to share your data with everyone?

We are pretty sure you are not, especially when you have important and secret information. In some cases, these conditions are valid not only for a free package with limited capabilities but also for professional products with enhanced functionality.

This issue is actual when it comes to American companies. The situation is absolutely different with German providers, who are obliged to comply with the basic law on information protection and indicate the importance of encryption.

So, in cloud services with servers located outside the EU, only non-essential files should be stored in clear form — for example, downloaded programs and videos, photos of landscapes and buildings. Snapshots of people and truly confidential documentation should be uploaded to such storage only within a folder encrypted with Boxcryptor.

A certain exception can be made for the Backblaze service, which at least offers a kind of end-to-end encryption — however, in this case, you will have to trust the provider that when accessing the web interface, the passwords for encryption and decryption are not saved.

Storage capacity and convenient synchronization software

Every good backup service must provide a convenient synchronization software for your Mac computer and configure the folders for backup, from which the new or modified files will be immediately uploaded to the cloud storage.

These solutions are great for the first stage (real-time protection) and can complement the third stage (catastrophe protection), so you do not need to make full back-ups often.

But since even cloud services sometimes do not work or are unavailable (for example, during long-term problems with connecting to the Internet), in no case should you refuse to regularly back up to local hard drives.

Cloud storage clients also allow you to synchronize information across multiple devices. Depending on the size of the online disk, such synchronization can cost about $10-$15 per month for one or two terabytes.

The Backblaze service has no restrictions on the volume which by default loads the entire contents of all internal and external drives connected to the computer.

Conclusion

We reviewed the best four cloud backup services available for Mac users. They provide great security features, are pretty customizable, and are available for affordable prices. We are sure you will find a great solution for your needs.

MacBook users need to back up their hard drives full of pictures, documents, media files and more. Apple includes a couple of tools within OS X that help with Mac backup, but users may want to consider some third-party tools as well. We’ll round-up the best Mac backup options to help you. These include Time Machine, which Apple builds into every Mac with OS X. Users can also backup selective data with things like iCloud, manual backup or file syncing services. Third parties also offer complete and partial backup solutions.

A few of these solutions will include opening System Preferences. To do this, do one of the following:

• Click on the Apple icon button in the upper left corner of the screen and choose System Preferences.
• Click on the gray and black gear icon from the Dock (on the right end by default). To make sure you’re selecting the right one hover over the icons till the label System Preferences pops up over the mouse cursor.
• Use the keyboard shortcut COMMAND + SPACE and type Sys then hit Enter.

Remember to follow the 3-2-1 Mac Backup strategy. That equates to 3 copies of your data on at least 2 kinds of media with at least 1 offsite backup. The three copies will include the one on the computer, one on the local backup media and one in offsite backup like the cloud or a drive that you put at another place. The following solutions will help you follow this rule.

Time Machine

Apple includes Time Machine as part of OS X making it possibly the simplest Mac backup option. Connect a hard drive and turn it on. The utility backs up everything on the Mac to the external drive so that users can get their files back if they lose them or if the computer stops working, gets lost or stolen.

We’ve got a great Time Machine How To article already. To summarize, follow these steps:

1. Open OS X System Preferences using the steps above.
2. Click on Time Machine in the last row on the right end.
3. Click the On/Off button so it turns On.
4. Click on Select Disk to choose the external drive you wish to use for backup and then OK to close the dialog box.

The box that pops up when the user clicks the Select Disk button offers the option to choose a disk connected to the Mac or the person can choose an AirPort Time Capsule. Apple sells two sizes ($300 for a 2TB option and $400 for a 3TB Time Capsule). The Time Capsule includes a hard drive and a network router with Wi-Fi and Ethernet. They’re simple to set up but don’t offer as many features as most modern routers, most of which transfer data faster than Apple’s Time Capsule. You need to choose between simplicity or speed and features.

Since Time Machine doesn’t offer an offsite option, use one of the following as well.

iCloud

iCloud won’t back up everything on a drive like Time Machine, but it does back files up to the cloud. GottaBeMobile offers a great guide for using iCloud on Mac and iPhone, but we’ll focus on OS X and Mac backup.

Set up iCloud by opening System Preferences. Click on iCloud, the first icon in the third row. The above dialog box will appear. Check off the kinds of data you want to back up. The article in the link above explains each of them in detail.

Every Apple user account comes with at least 5GB of free iCloud storage, but that will fill up quickly if the user plans to use it for things like photos or other media files. If you plan to use iCloud for all of your files and data, then consider buying more storage. It costs $2.99/month for 200GB or $9.99/month for 1TB. Click on Manage in the lower right corner. Then choose Change Storage Plan to buy more.

Other 3rd-party file syncing services also offer backup. See below for more on those.

Hard Drive Mirroring

Time Machine is a great tool for Mac backup, but it’s not as powerful as making a mirror image or copy of the entire hard drive. If your MacBook hard drive fails, then you can plug in the second hard drive and press the OPTION button on your keyboard while booting the Mac. All the connected drives will appear and you can pick the external drive and boot to it to get your Mac up and running. Now you can use it to reformat the internal drive and then mirror the external drive back to the internal drive and you’re ready to go. You’ll only lose the data created since the last time you created the mirror.

The two most popular solutions for Mac backup include Super Duper and Carbon Copy.

Super Duper

Super Duper comes from Shirt Pocket Software and costs $27.95 with a free trial version. It’s a simple program. It asks the user to point to their source drive in the first drop down box at the top of the SuperDuper app window. Select it from the drop down next to the word Copy. Then, choose the target drive in the second drop down box. After the program finishes the two drives will have the same contents.

SuperDuper lets users customize how files get backed up. There are a lot of features and some automation that makes it easy to set it and forget it. The program comes with a PDF file that does a great job of explaining its features.

The user can either Schedule the cloning of the disk for a later time or click on CopyNow to do it right away.

Super Duper is a simple, affordable solution that you can test before paying.

Carbon Copy Cloner

A slightly more powerful and polished program called Carbon Copy Cloner costs a little more than Super Duper. It works like Super Duper but offers a few more features for $39.95. Choose your source drive and then choose a destination drive. Set the user settings and click on Clone to start the process.

The program lets users select which files to copy. You either choose All files or pick Selected files.

If the user turns on Safety Net (a switch below the destination drive button), the program will protect files that the user deleted since their last backup as space allows. This protects those files on the destination drive without copying them back to the source drive of the Mac. This makes it possible to keep backups without cluttering the internal hard drive of the Mac.

Carbon Copy Cloner will also create image files of the drive. Users can customize how they receive notifications when the process completes: an email or using the OS X system notifications. The program also allows the user to schedule backups.

Mac Backup of Personal Files Only

Some people don’t want to take the time to do a full system backup. Since a person can reinstall their operating system and apps, the user only needs to backup personal files. It’s not the best approach, but it might make sense if…

• You don’t own a large enough backup hard drive.
• You use very slow Internet service and backing up to the cloud will take forever.
• Your Internet service provider limits the amount of bandwidth you can use in a month and full backups will eat that up quickly.

Forklift

Get an app like Forklift ($9.99) a helpful Finder replacement. The app looks like Finder, but shows two panes making it easy to copy from one drive to another quickly. The program also includes the following features making it great for backing up files.

• Remote file access though FTP, WebDAV, Amazon S3, SMB and more.
• Folder Sync compares contents of two folders and syncs them so both folders always include the same files
• Synclets schedules syncs and runs them automatically.
• Conflict management controls whether to delete files when copying a similar file from one place to another.
• Create archives like ZIP files.
• Built-in file viewer so users can see what they’re copying (great for pictures and videos).

6 File Sync Solutions for Mac Backup

If you want to use a cloud backup solution for backing up just your personal files, consider using one of the great file syncing services. Here’s a list of the best file syncing options:

• OneDrive – comes with an Office 365 subscription so you may already have up to 1TB included
• Dropbox – most used by other apps and services and integrates with Microsoft Office
• Box – a large cache of free storage
• Google Drive – if you’ve ever bought a Chromebook you may already enjoy a 1TB of free storage
• SugarSync – one of the most feature-filled services with awesome sync apps and mobile apps, but it’s also a little more expensive
• iCloud Drive – you can still use it as a drive by storing files in the iCloud Drive folder on your Mac.

3rd Party Mac Backup Services

A 3rd-party cloud backup service that offers the most complete option, but it also costs more than most. Check out these popular services.

iDrive

iDrive is listed as a favorite among Mac users. It’s a comprehensive solution with some awesome features. This makes it the best option in the roundup for those who don’t mind paying for a solid 3rd-party cloud backup service.

iDrive offers a free 5GB account for people who don’t want or need to back up everything. This makes it more like the above file syncing services. A 1TB option costs only $60/year, but they’re running a sale for $44.62. The 10TB option is for hardcore users with multiple machines to back up and costs $500/year or about $375 on sale.

The iDrive app shows a column along the left with buttons for each part of the utility.

• Backup – use this to start backups either to a local drive or over Wi-Fi or through the Internet to the iDrive servers.
• Restore – when you need to put a file back in place after loss, use the Restore section.
• Schedule – this schedules backups. Tell the program to do all backups at night or during the part of the day when the computer’s not in use but turned on.
• Sync – syncs files stored in a special folder under your main user folder. Each computer set up with iDrive will sync the folders in this special folder. It works like Dropbox or Sugarsync.
• Server Backup – for backing up web sites and only shows up in the business versions.
• Settings – change the utilities settings.

In the above screen shot, notice that iDrive offers iDrive account backup and local backup. The first backs things up through the Internet to the iDrive cloud servers. The second option does the Mac backup to a local drive: an external drive or a network attached drive. Users can also pick an iDrive Wi-Fi backup drive like the one offered by iDrive for $100 (1TB) or $150 (2TB). Connect it to your network and backup over Wi-Fi.

Use the Restore button on the left to get the backup files from the cloud. It lets you select specific files or folders and chose to either put them back where they were originally or you can download them to a different spot, like your Mac Desktop. Do this if you want to put it back in place manually.

iDrive offers a few features that make it a great tool. For example, remote backup control through their website and mobile apps so you can reach your files from anywhere. The apps also backup phone or tablet content.

Users can get the iDrive mobile apps for iPhone and iPad. The app backs up contacts, photos, videos, health data, and calendars. It also syncs files between all mobile devices and backs up Instagram and Facebook accounts. Use it to share files or folders with others and view your backed up images or videos within the app.

Cloud Backup For Mac Best Free

Backblaze

Backblaze also offers a solid backup service for a comparable price. Their regular price is less than iDrive at only $50/year for personal backup. However, that’s slightly more than the iDrive sale price. Users get unlimited storage, a huge benefit compared to iDrive. This makes it a better deal for those who need more than 1TB of backup storage.

The program runs from the Menu Bar in OS X. Click on the little flame icon to access the following:

• Preferences
• Remaining Files to backup
• Pause the backup
• Restore your files
• Check for program updates
• Get help
• Transfer Backup State lets you pause backing up of this computer and transfer your backup to another computer
• About shows program info

Cloud Backup Solutions For Mac

The utility is simpler than iDrive, but also doesn’t look as pretty. It includes many of the key features you get with iDrive. It comes preconfigured to start backing up the moment the user starts up the utility. Users can add more files to the backup since Backblaze backs up user files but excludes apps and OS X files by default.

Backblaze offers three options to restore your Mac backup files. Download them from the web in the form of a single ZIP file, on a flash drive (up to 128GB) or a USB hard drive (up to 4TB). These last two will cost $99 or $189 and they deliver them overnight via Fedex. Backblaze also offers Backblaze iOS app. Use the app to see your files and download them after the service backs them up from the computer. It also shares files using the built-in iOS share feature. It doesn’t seem to back up the phone or tablet’s files like iDrive’s iOS app.

Backblaze includes one feature that you can’t get on iDrive. If a MacBook gets lost or stolen, Backblaze can be used it to find it. Go to their website and login. Use the Locate My Computer link along the left side of the screen. Click on Map This and it opens a map to show where the computer last logged into the Internet. However, I use a VPN service that seems to block this feature.

Recommendation

Start with Time Machine as your complete local backup. If you don’t own an external drive, get one. They’re not expensive and you don’t need a super fast drive. Find one the same size or bigger than your internal hard drive.

Best Online Backup For Mac

Next, turn on iCloud and get the 200GB option, unless you know you’ll need more space. It’s only $3/month for peace of mind and does more than backup. Don’t trust Apple alone, however, sign up for a file syncing service and/or iDrive or Backblaze. iDrive seems like the better solution for most people. Those who need more space than 1TB should buy a Backblaze subscription.

This takes care of the 3-2-1 backup strategy. You have 3 copies of your important files, on the internal drive, in Time Machine and in the cloud. The files are on two different media (three if you count the cloud which serves as the offsite backup).

For added security, clone your disks regularly and then store the cloned drive somewhere else. Mail it to a family member across country or take it when you visit. Do this a few times per year.

Apple Icloud Backup For Mac

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