Backup Files and Your Entire Digital Life (2026): Hard Drives, Cloud-Based Tools, and Tips

Backblaze, a backup company that currently stores more than 1 exabyte of data, and thus has a lot of experience with hard drives, periodically publishes its drive statistics, which have some useful numbers to keep in mind.

Unfortunately, what stands out from this data is that longevity varies more by model than by manufacturer. However, I suggest sticking with well-known names like Seagate and Western Digital. However, even branded drives fail. I once had a big brand drive break down and it was only four months old. What you get by sticking to brand names is good customer service. In my case, the company replaced the drive without question.

Even within brand names, some external storage drives are better than others. Many of us here on the reviews team have had good luck with Western Digital hard drives. I like the 8TB model mentioned above, but if you want something smaller and more portable, the 5TB My Passport Ultra was also a reliable drive in my testing.

One of the great things about purchasing a drive to back up your data is that you don’t have to worry about the speed of the drive. Even slow driving at 5400 rpm is good. These slower drives are cheaper, and since the backup software runs in the background, you probably won’t notice the slower speed. However, I now keep two backups on external hard drives: one on a traditional drive and one on a more expensive SSD flash drive. A traditional drive and an SSD, even if purchased at the same time, are unlikely to fail at the same time.

Get the largest backup drive you can afford. Incremental backups — which is how all good backup software works — save disk space by backing up only files that have changed since the last backup. However, you need a larger drive for backups than any other drive on your computer. A good rule of thumb is to have a spare drive that is two or even three times the size of the drive in your computer.

A good backup system works without you having to do anything. There shouldn’t even be a backup; It should happen automatically. If you have to He makes A backup, probably won’t do it. Then the phrase “data loss” will enter your life.

These days, there is software that can automate all your backup tasks, so you only need to do the configuration once, and never have to worry about it again. As with disk validation, automatic backup tools vary by operating system (and if you’re worried about mobile data, keep reading, we’ll get to that below).

Mac users should create automatic backups using Time machine. It’s simple, great software and probably the best reason to buy a Mac. Apple has good instructions on how to set up Time Machine so that it makes daily backups to your external hard drive. The time machine is also smart; It will only back up files that have been changed, so it won’t take up all your disk space.