External hard drive vs cloud backup: which is better?

This question comes up almost every time someone realizes they should back up their files. Both options work. They protect against different problems. The honest answer is that you should probably use both, but if you can only pick one, the answer depends on what you are most worried about losing your files to.

Quick comparison

External hard drive: the good and the bad

Good

• Fast. A full Mac backs up to Time Machine in a few hours the first time, minutes after that. Cloud takes days.
• Cheap up front. $60 buys 2 TB. After year one, no ongoing cost.
• You own the drive. No subscription. No company that can shut down or change pricing.
• Works without internet. Power goes out, internet drops, your backup is still right there.
• Easy restores. Plug it in, drag a file out, done.

Bad

• Sits next to your computer. A house fire takes both. A burglar takes both. A flood takes both.
• Will fail eventually. Every drive has a lifespan. 3 to 5 years is typical.
• Vulnerable to ransomware if always plugged in. Ransomware encrypts every drive it can see.
• Easy to forget to plug in. If your backup drive sits in a drawer for six months, you have six months of unprotected work.

Cloud backup: the good and the bad

Good

• Offsite by definition. Fire, theft, flood, drop, kids; none of those matter.
• Versioned. Most cloud backup services keep previous versions of files for 30 days or more. Recover from ransomware, bad edits, deleted-by-mistake.
• Automatic. Set it once, it backs up continuously without you thinking about it.
• Restores anywhere. Lost the computer entirely? Buy a new one, sign in to the cloud account, files come back.

Bad

• First backup is slow. Uploading 500 GB on a typical home connection takes a week or more, depending on upload speed. The service has to slow down at times so you can still use your internet.
• Ongoing cost. You stop paying, you eventually lose access.
• Restoring big amounts of data is slow over internet. Most good services let you order a USB drive in the mail for a fee. Worth knowing about.
• You trust the provider. Pick a real company with a track record (Backblaze, iDrive, Carbonite). Avoid no-name "lifetime storage" deals.

Cloud sync (Dropbox, Google Drive, OneDrive, iCloud) is not the same as cloud backup

This trips up almost everyone. Sync services keep a folder in the cloud and on all your devices. If you delete a file on one, it deletes everywhere. If a file gets corrupted, the corrupted version syncs.

Cloud sync is fine for collaboration and "I want this file on my phone." It is not a real backup unless you also enable version history and back up files that live outside the sync folder.

Cloud backup services like Backblaze, iDrive, and Carbonite are different: they back up your entire computer (including the parts not synced), keep deleted files for at least 30 days, and keep older versions you can roll back to.

My recommendation by situation

Most people: do both

Cost is around $90 once for an external drive, plus $70 per year for cloud. Total first year is roughly $160. After that, just the cloud subscription. Time Machine or File History runs to the external automatically. Backblaze runs in the background to the cloud. Two copies, two failure modes covered.

Tight budget, can only afford one

Buy a $60 external drive. Run Time Machine (Mac) or File History (Windows). Keep the drive disconnected when not backing up, so ransomware cannot encrypt it. Plug it in once a week.

You work with huge files (video, photo)

External drive is necessary. Cloud upload speeds get crushing at scale. Use an external for the working library plus a cloud backup of "must keep forever" originals. Backblaze charges a flat fee no matter how big your computer is, which is a lot better than per-GB cloud storage at scale.

You travel a lot or live in a fire risk area

Cloud is necessary. Local backups burn or get stolen. A cloud backup means everything you own digitally lives somewhere else too.

Family with kids and photos

Use both, but the cloud half matters more. Family photos are the thing people regret most when they lose them. iCloud, Google Photos, or Amazon Photos all work for the photos themselves. Then add Backblaze for whole-computer coverage.

External drive picks worth knowing about

• Western Digital My Passport / WD Elements: reliable, cheap, easy. 2 TB to 6 TB. Around $60 to $130.
• Seagate Backup Plus / OneTouch: similar to WD, slightly different look. Both companies own each other's brands too, all reliable.
• Samsung T7 SSD: faster, smaller, more durable, more expensive. Worth it if you back up large files often.
• Avoid: no-name USB sticks marketed as "1TB" or "2TB" for $15. Often counterfeit, often fail.

Cloud backup services worth knowing about

• Backblaze: $9 per month, unlimited storage per computer. Easy. The default recommendation.
• iDrive: $80 per year for 5 TB, covers multiple devices. Good for households.
• Carbonite: $84 per year per computer. Older brand, still works fine.

All three offer mailed drive restores for big recoveries. All three have free trials.

The 3-2-1 rule

The standard advice from IT pros: 3 copies of your data, on 2 different types of media, with 1 copy offsite. For most people that breaks down as: your computer (copy 1), an external drive (copy 2), and a cloud backup (copy 3, offsite). Sounds like overkill until the day you need it.