When it comes to backing up their computer, many users don’t know whether to go with an online backup service or backup to an external hard drive. Both have their pros and cons

Upfront Cost

If you’re going to backup locally (meaning, to an external hard drive), you’ll need to buy the drive and the backup software before you can start. Acronis ($49.99 available from acronis.com) is a great backup product, and is easily configured to make full and incremental backups regularly. Of course, you’ll also need a reliable USB drive to backup to, such as the Western Digital Elements 1 TB External Hard Drive.

Backing up online, you need to signup and download the backup software (from Mozy, Backblaze, or another provider). Both Mozy and Backblaze are $4.95 / month.

The upfront cost of backing up to an external hard drive: about $165
The upfront cost of backing up online: about $5
Winner: Online Backups

Ongoing Costs

While local backups have a much higher upfront cost, online backups have a recurring cost, which local backups do not have. You can expect to pay $5 / month for unlimited backup space with an online backup provider, whereas backing up locally has no ongoing cost (but it does have limited storage space).

Winner: Local Backups

A note on costs

You can sign up for a 2-year Mozy account and use a 20% off promotional code to pay only $83.16. If you do that again when you renew, you’ll end up paying about $165 for 4 years of online backups – the same price as your local backup set-up with Acronis & a USB drive.

Set-up

Configuring the local backup software (Acronis) or the online backup software (Mozy, Backblaze) are essentially the same: you choose which files to backup and when to back them up.

However, with local backups, you’ll need to also install the external drive. Typically this isn’t an issue, but it’s an extra step to do with local backups.

Winner: Online Backups

Initial Backup

The initial backup is the first backup you perform, where you make a copy of all of the data in the backup set. This is typically done while the computer isn’t in use, such as overnight. Backing up to a high-speed USB drive will take a couple of hours. Backing up to an online service will take days or weeks (figure out how long it will take you to perform your initial backup).

Winner: Local Backups

Incremental Backup

After your initial backup is complete, your computer will then start making incremental backups. What this means is the new files, or files that were changed since the last backup, will be saved to the backup location.

Incremental backups to a local drive should take less than an hour; time to complete incremental backups to an online backup provider varies, but typically takes a couple of hours. Since these are typically done when the computer is idle, there’s no clear winner here:

Winner: Tie

Restores

Restoring data is an important step with backing up your computer. After all, what good is a backup, if you can’t get the data out of it. Restores from both an external drive or from an online service provider work fairly the same – you chose the file to restore, and the service (or software) retrieves it and saves it to your computer.

Winner: Tie

Safety

Both local and online backups protect your data from hardware failures and user error. But if you’re unfortunate to be the victim of theft, fire, or other physical damage to your computer workspace, local backups will not protect your data.

Winner: Online Backups

Conclusion

When we tally the score, online backups wins on 3 points, local backups on 2 points, and the two options tie on 2 points. As internet speeds increase, the biggest downside to online backups, the initial backup time, will be less and less of an issue.

Even so, with the safety of your data being the most important point in the argument of online backups versus backing up with an external hard drive, online backups takes the win.