Keep It in the Cloud

The best Cloud storage services keep your data safe with end-to-end encryption. They also offer free storage space and reasonable fees for additional space. Since your data is in a remote location, you can access it from anywhere by both computer and mobile device as long as you have internet access. Big players in the cloud storage field include:

iCloud: Apple’s cloud solution offers users 5GB of free storage. Windows users can also sync their files with iCloud Drive. Google Drive: Google’s service is integrated with Android devices. Windows and Mac users can download a desktop application for drag-and-drop capability. The service includes 15GB of free storage. OneDrive: It’s accessible through Windows 10’s file explorer. Android and iOS devices access the site through an app. Mac users can also download an app from the Mac App Store. OneDrive includes 5GB of free storage space. Dropbox: It’s been around for a while and offers personal and business subscriptions. The personal account includes 2GB of free data.

Plenty of other cloud storage services are around: MegaBackup, Nextcloud, Box, Spideroak One, and iDrive, to name a few. It’s probably best to stay away from newer services. You don’t want to sign on one day and learn the startup you use to store your data has gone out of business.

Save It to an External Hard Drive

External and portable hard drives connect to one computer at a time. They’re usually wired devices, although some have wireless capabilities. Many now come with USB 3.0 capabilities, but your computer must also have USB 3.0 to take advantage of this feature.

Burn It to a CD, DVD, or Blu-Ray Disc

Once the gold standard in data backup, burning data to CDs, DVDs, or Blu-ray discs is now a much less popular, albeit still reliable, method of data backup.

Put It on a USB Flash Drive

USB flash drives are like tiny solid-state drives that you can carry in your pocket. While they were once expensive and available only in small capacities, their prices have dropped and size increased.

Save It to a NAS Device

A NAS (network-attached storage) is a server that’s dedicated to saving data. It can operate either wired or wirelessly—depending on the drive and your computer—and once configured, it can display as simply another drive on your computer.