The first should be obvious-all the data you've selected for backup is copied in its entirety. More granular options include whether backups are full, incremental, or differential. Usually, you also have the option to tell the backup service to monitor your drive for changed or new files to back up as they occur. Most backup software lets you schedule scans of your hard drive for new and changed files daily, weekly, monthly, or continually (or at least, say, every 15 minutes).

Should you lose the local files, either through disaster or simply by deleting or overwriting them, you can just restore them from the saved copies.įor this to work, the copies of your files must be updated regularly. That storage can be another drive, an external drive, a network-attached storage device (NAS), a rewritable disc, or the cloud-meaning someone else's servers. The concept behind backup software is pretty simple: Make a copy of your files on storage separate from your main hard drive. These features and services are all well worth using, but they have some limitations, lacking some of the extra benefits you get from running standalone backup software. Both also offer some cloud backup, with iCloud and OneDrive, as well. Windows 10 and Windows 11 include a File History feature and a full disk backup feature, and macOS includes its Time Machine software. Backup software and services do just that.īoth Windows and macOS have beefed up their built-in backup tools in recent years. Your business documents and your files, photos, videos, and music all deserve to be protected. Glitches happen, and so do hacks, theft, and physical damage to a device.

Best Hosted Endpoint Protection and Security SoftwareĪll technology is subject to sudden and unexpected data loss.

Best personal cloud backup