12 Best Backup Software for Windows PC

Digital storage systems have evolved significantly over the last few years but the fears of losing your important data are still valid and pressing. Whether it is to stay protected against an unexpected or accidental failure of a hard drive, PC getting corrupt, or to defend against any online infection such as WannaCry ransomware, backing up data to a safe trove makes sense. There is a variety of backup software for Windows PC that can help you safeguard your data. In this article, we have listed 12 best back up software for Windows that you can use on you PC in 2020.

Top Backup Software for Windows (Updated August 2020)

Below, we’ve listed out the best backup software for Windows users, catering to different backup requirements. We’ve tried to incorporate the factor of ease of use since we understand that backup up data or restoring it isn’t the most entertaining task out there. You can click on the links below and move to the corresponding program. Also, you can learn how to choose a backup software from our explainer below.

1. Acronis True Image
2. Macrium Reflect
3. EaseUS Todo Backup
4. O&O DiskImage
5. Paragon Backup & Recovery
6. Veeam Agent
7. AOMEI Backupper
8. Google Backup and Sync
9. Dropbox
10. Microsoft OneDrive
11. Box
12. iDrive

• How to Choose a Backup Software?

The question that which backup software will be better for you depends on your use-case. If you want a backup solution for storing documents and important files then cloud storage options would be a better choice. And if you want to fully back up your PC and not just for once but at regular intervals then you should get a full-fledged backup application.

Always look for features like differential backup that allows you to back up only the changed files and not the whole drive. In addition, make sure to have scheduled backup, encryption for added security, ability to easily restore data, and more. And if the backup software supports PE environment then that is even better, in case the PC crashes out of the blue. So these are the essential features that you should keep in mind before choosing a backup software.

• How We Test?

We have tested these programs on our PC running Windows 10 and all of them work fine. In addition, we have used some of the software in the past for moving data from one PC to another and they have been quite reliable. In tandem, the programs mentioned below are authentic and you can use them without any issue.

Best Backup Software for PC

1. Acronis True Image 2020

Acronis True Image is one of the most versatile options – and deservedly on the top of the list. It allows users to take full images of disk drives along with the flexibility of scheduling backups and taking incremental or differential backups. Apart from the elaborate options to back up the entire PC, select drives, or just some folders and files, you can use dedicated options to create recovery disks.

Acronis True Image has significantly embraced the cloud and will also allow you to back up images to the cloud so that you can access it across multiple different devices or use the same image for multiple devices.

Apart from these features, Acronis recently added support for Office 365 so that users can backup and restore their emails using True Image 2020 and as well as a cryptomining blocker which can detect and weed out malware intended to use your system’s resources for cryptomining.

Acronis True Image also allows you to remotely manage and modify your system using a mobile device or another Windows machines using Parallels Access feature. Then, there’s a feature which lets you roll back on a certain backup method if you don’t like it, and a dedicated cleaner helps you wipe off unwanted or duplicate backups.

Lastly, you also get an encrypted vault where you can store all your backups securely. If you’re looking for a holistic backup solution, Acronis True Image is genuinely worth the investment.

Other than that, Acronis True Image 2020 also brings Cyber Protection feature. There’s ‘Acronis Survival Kit’ which basically creates a backup media of all the essential items on your system including the boot media, system partition, and all your backups, so you can fully restore your entire system in case of a catastrophic failure.

If you prefer using USB-based storage (like an external hard drive) to back up your system, you can set up Acronis True Image to automatically start backing up your system as soon as the backup media is attached — this is very similar to how Time Machine works on a Mac and is a reliable and easy way to ensure regular backups without having to manually start backups every time.

Acronis True Image 2020 also comes with a ransomware detection tool that uses AI to detect ransomware and protect your PC. Acronis claims that its tool has stopped over 200,000 ransomware attacks, plus with True Image, that same protection gets extended to all your NAS drivers, and data on network share.

Key Features: 

• Full PC image backup and restore
• Automatic scheduled backup
• Back up over the same hard drive and cloud backup
• Strong AES 256 encryption.

Pricing: 30-day free trial and $49.99/year after that.

Compatibility: Windows 10, 8.1, 8, 7, XP

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2. Macrium Reflect

Macrium Reflect is arguably one of the best backup software for Windows right now. It has an endless list of features to the point that you might feel overwhelmed. Yes, the software is a bit complex to use and designed primarily for professionals, but general users can also utilize this tool for creating a complete backup of their Windows PC.

With Macrium Reflect, you can create a full backup image, clone a disk, set scheduled backup and do a lot more. Macrium Reflect has both free and paid versions, but the free tool comes with all the essential features including Differential backup, unlike many programs that don’t offer scheduled backups in the free version.

In case you are unaware, there are three types of backup methods generally found on most backup tools: Full, Differential, and Incremental backup. Full backup means it will simply copy everything on your PC including the OS. It’s a time-consuming process and takes up huge disk space. You can use this backup method if you are moving to a new PC.

However, if you intend to create a scheduled backup system for your PC to an external hard drive then go with Differential or Incremental backup. On Differential backup, a Full image backup takes place, and then it stores all the changes since the first Full image backup. This process takes less time to back up your data and is also easy to restore, however, after a week or two, you should create a full image backup to keep the size of differential backup small.

Coming to Incremental backup, it also creates a Full backup first, but only stores the changes that have occurred since the last incremental backup. As a result, the incremental backup remains very small and the backup process takes almost no time. Further, you will not have to do a Full backup periodically which saves even more time.

However, while restoring, this process takes too much time since you will have to restore incremental backups of each cycle. So to put it straight, Macrium Reflect has all three options, but with the free version, you will get Full and Differential backup features so that is pretty good. To learn more about the setup process, go through our detailed article on how to create a backup on Windows using Macrium Reflect.

Key Features:

• Full PC cloning
• Best for professionals
• Scheduled backup
• Supports differential backup
• Major features available for free

Pricing: Free, Premium versions start at $69.95

Compatibility: Windows 10, 8.1, 8, 7, Vista, XP

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3. EaseUS Todo Backup

EaseUS Todo Backup is a versatile backup software for Windows which not only lets you back up your files, folders, or entire drives to a secure physical or network-based location but also upload these backups to popular drives such as Google Drive, Dropbox, and OneDrive. Apart from this, you can create disk images of drives or their partitions for a seamless recovery.

The backup software also comes with features to take incremental, differential, or full backups of drives as per schedule or with the addition of new data. Despite new increments, you can still choose to restore an older backup file.

Apart from the above-mentioned features, EaseUS Todo Backup lets users change the compressions settings of a specific backup, copies security settings and password protection when backing up a disk, wipe disks, and supports slicing of the backups into smaller sections.

Additionally, the option to backup Android devices which can be handy when you have to momentarily try a new ROM or factory reset your Android smartphone. Lastly, you can also create bootable WinPE recovery disks to recover your PC in case it is unable to start up.

Key Features: 

• Cloud backup
• Options for creating clones of individual disks and full system
• Maintains password protection
• Supports scheduled backups.

Pricing: Free version with limited features and a Home version for a price of $29 for a lifetime.

Compatibility: Windows 10, 8.1, 8, 7, XP

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4. O&O DiskImage

O&O DiskImage is a rich suite of features and tools one needs in order to backup complete drives or certain files and folders selectively. The interface uses easy-to-interpret text along with some basic images to show you many of the available backup options.

O&O DiskImage has direct options to create disk-wise or file-wise backups, and allows you to choose between different sections of a local drive like System, OS, and Recovery sectors which you can select or deselect based on your requirements.

O&O DiskImage also sports features like “One-click imaging” letting you take backups of all the connected physical drives with the default options selected with a – you guessed it – single click. But if you want, you can customize the options to suit your needs. Besides backing up drives, you can also back up files and even encrypt the backup files.

Furthermore, you get the option to take only incremental or differential backups in order to save space on the backup storage medium, alongside an option to split larger files into smaller ones so that you can store them on multiple flash drives (or god forbid, CDs).

O&O Disk Image also lets you restore your backups on a computer with different hardware from the PC you backed up on, which can come in handy if you’ve upgraded your system with new hardware, or if you’ve bought a new PC. Disk Image also comes with a brand new Disk Image to Go feature that automatically creates a new boot media on your backup drive, which

Besides these handy features, you can also define your own Settings profiles so that you don’t have to modify the options every time you initiate a new backup. With O&O DiskImage, you can also create Windows PE-based recovery media if your hard drive crashes or gets corrupted.

The software also allows you to use virtual and network-based storage drives and even lets you mount earlier backup images as local drives, so you can view them in the Windows Explorer, which we think, can come pretty handy if you just want a quick look through the backed up data.

The backup software, although elaborate, should not be overwhelming for beginners and as you learn more, you can start utilizing more and more options.

Key Features: 

• Easy to operate
• Variety of features
• Support for virtual and network disks
• One-click backup option

Price: 30-day free trial with a lifetime license for $49.95 per PC and $69.95 for 5 PCs.

Compatibility: Windows 10, 8.1, 8, 7, Vista, Mac

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5. Paragon Backup & Recovery

Paragon Backup & Recovery is designed to let you back up certain partitions or entire hard disks in the form of virtual drives. These backups can either be utilized to restore Windows machines in case of failure or data loss or to restore virtual machines.

Apart from the ability to back up the entire storage of your Windows computer as well as select volumes, you can also use Paragon Backup & Recovery to backup specific files or folders to the recovery media. Not only this, the backup software will allow you to compress the backup files as well as split them into smaller pieces so that you can transfer them to a portable storage device.

The backup software smartly scans the selected folders for any new files and creates differential backups based on the disk image of the sectors on hard disks. Further, there’s a smarter option that lets users update data related to already backed up files and create an incremental backup using the sector-based logs. Paragon Backup & Recovery also lets users filter out certain file types or directories which are to be excluded from the backup.

Additionally, you also get the option to create WinPE-based bootable media such as recovery drives or DVDs which will let you run recovery tools built into Windows in case your PC is corrupted. This will also allow you to replace the corrupt disk with a previously created image of the disk.

Key Features: 

• Customizable Backup and restore options
• Create full System Image
• Create bootable media of your System.

Pricing: Community Edition for Free; Paid version for $49.95 with lifetime access for 1 PC.

Compatibility: Windows XP, Vista, 7, 8, 8.1 and 10.

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6. Veeam Agent for Microsoft Windows

Veeam Agent for Microsoft Windows is a fairly long name for what was originally released a couple of years ago as Veeam Endpoint Backup Free. Unlike most of the other utilities on this list that are meant for the home user, Veeam is mostly known for its enterprise solutions.

However, the company offers a free version of Veeam Agent for home users and it’s one of the most uncomplicated backup software out there. Within seconds, you can create a task for System and Drive back up and it will start doing its job.

Apart from that, you can use Veeam Agent for Windows servers, workstations and devices running in the public cloud. It fully supports Windows 10 and Windows Server 2016 but doesn’t officially support anything older than Windows 7 (SP1) or Windows Server 2008 (SP1). It is one of the most well-known solutions in the market today if you’re looking for a free backup of your servers running on for VMware and Hyper-V. However, it offers much more functionality than that.

It can create a full backup of VMs and restore everything including files, folders, and settings. It also allows users to migrate between the hosts even if you do not officially use vMotion or Storage vMotion. Simply put, if you want a simple backup software for Windows PC or server that is free and works reliably well then Veeam Agent is an apt choice.

Key Features:

• Best for Windows Server backup
• Simple and easy to use
• Free for general users
• Can backup local drives for general users

Pricing: Free, Premium version pricing available on request

Compatibility: Windows 10, 8.1, 7 SP1, Server 2012-2019

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7. AOMEI Backupper

AOMEI Backupper is a decent backup software with both free and paid options. You can create a backup of Windows and all its settings to revert to it when required, and you get full control over what to backup. You can back up individual files/folders, partitions, and disks. A backup schedule can be created along with full backup sync to ensure all your files are properly backed up.

While creating a backup the software will not mess with any of the processes and you can keep using all the apps and the system without worrying. The data can be backed on external storage devices or PC’s own hard drive and you can also save it to NAS (Network-Attached Storage).

Its free version offers all the backup and restore options, but it lacks some side features, such as disk space management, system clone, Command Line backup, and Backup Image merge. The professional version offers all these features that Standard version lacks. There is also a Server version which will let you backup data from data servers, perfect for businesses.

Key Features: 

• Full backup options for free
• Full control over backup & restore
• Create full system clone.

Pricing: Free version with limited features and a Professional version for a price of $49.95 for a lifetime for 2 PCs.

Compatibility: Windows 10, 8.1, 8, 7, XP

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Cloud Storage Backup Services

Above, we have listed some of the most useful backup software which you can install on your PC. But with the growing demand for online storages, the list would be incomplete without some useful and feature-rich cloud storage options. Most of these options offer limited storage for free with some paid plans to expand it. Besides giving you freedom from carrying physical backup drives with you, cloud storages also give you the liberty of accessing your files from any computer or mobile device.

Here are the best cloud storage options which you can use as a replacement for aforementioned backup software.

8. Google Backup and Sync (Works with Google Drive)

Google Drive is one of the best cloud storage services you can find. It comes with your Google Account which most of the people already have and it integrates well with other Google services.

Aside from letting you access your Google Drive files from your browser, you can download a desktop client called Backup and Sync to manage your Google Drive files directly from your desktop.

Same attributes as Google Drive apply to Backup and Sync and you can store 15GB of files – irrespective of the file type – with the free account. In order to gain more storage, you can start by paying $1.99 per month for 100GB of storage, which will cover other Google apps such as Google Docs and Google Photos.

There are other options too with options going all the way up to 30TB which costs $299.99 per month. Coming back to Google Backup and Sync, it creates a dedicated folder in your PC where you can view all of your files in form of a folder. The tool will also install shortcuts for Google Docs, Sheets, and Slides.

Key Features: 

• 15 GB free storage
• Simple and easy to use
• Integration with Google services

Pricing: Free 15 GB and paid plans starting at $1.99/month for 100 GB

Compatibility: Windows, Mac

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9. Dropbox

Dropbox is a simple to use cloud storage service with powerful features and compatibility. You can easily move files to the Dropbox folder in your PC and they will be uploaded and synced over every device. You get free storage of just 2 GB that can be increased to up to 18 GB by referring other people to Dropbox.

It covers a wide range of platforms, which makes sure you get to access your data from almost everywhere. If the free space is not enough, you can get 2 TB space for $9.99 per month with options of unlimited storage which may cost you $20 each month.

Key Features: 

• Multi-platform support and very simple to use

Pricing: 2GB for free and paid plans starting at $9.99/month for 2TB

Compatibility: Web, Windows, Mac, Linux, Android, iOS

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10. Microsoft OneDrive

Just like Google Drive integrates with Google products, OneDrive integrates with Microsoft products. It is built into Windows 8, 8.1, and Windows 10, and you can save all your office online documents into it.

You will get free storage space of 5 GB and its paid plans are also affordable where 50GB  space only costs $1.99/month. Additionally, you can get Office 365 plans, which include Office 365 online suite, starting for $69.99 per year.

If you are a Windows user with at least one more Windows-based device, then you should definitely try out Microsoft OneDrive.

Key Features: 

• Integrates with Microsoft products
• Cheap pricing
• 15 GB of free space

Pricing: Free 5 GB space and paid storage costing $1.99/month for 100 GB, $3.99/month for 200 GB and $6.99/month for 1 TB space.

Compatibility: Web, Windows, Mac, Android, iOS, Windows Phone

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11. Box

Box is specifically created for businesses, and while it does support individual accounts, the features work best for business use. Their main focus is on privacy and collaboration, you can easily share the uploaded files with other people (employees, preferably) and even add comments and specify who can access data and who can’t.

You will get 10 GB of free space with your Box account and you can get 100 GB of space for $6/month. For individuals, it might be a bit pricey, but for businesses, it offers unlimited storage for up to 3 users just for $17/month. If you want to backup your data and also want to collaborate on it, then Box is the way to go.

Key Features: 

• Collaboration tools with additional security
• Business-related features available
• Unlimited storage package

Pricing: Free 10 GB space and $10/month for 100 GB. Business plans start at $5 per user per month offering 100GB of storage and to make use of the plan you need at least 3 users.

Compatibility: Web, Windows, Mac, Android, iOS

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12. iDrive

iDrive is an online storage solution which has a striking balance of value for money, feature-rich client applications, and an easy to use interface. The free plan allows you up to 5GB of space and you can use iDrive with an unlimited number of devices.

Using the desktop client, you can automatically assign folders that need to be regularly backed up with the cloud and also set schedule for automatic backing up.

With iDrive, you get the choice to secure data with private encryption keys, which are also available to free users. While the interface might not be very attractive, the options are cleanly laid out and easy to spot. Besides letting you back up specific files or folders, iDrive also allows users to backup entire drives.

Apart from the free plan, users can choose the iDrive Personal plan starting with 2TB of storage and priced at $52.12 for the first year.

Key Features: 

• Easy to use
• Support for unlimited devices
• Apps on major platforms
• Encryption keys for data protection

Pricing: Free storage up to 5GB and paid plans starting at $52.12 per year

Compatibility: Windows, Mac, Linux, Android, iOS

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Frequently Asked Questions

Q. Which is The Best Backup Software for Windows 10?

Acronis True Image and Macrium Reflect are my personal favorite and they are considered to be the best backup software for Windows 10. However, if you want a free solution then Macrium Reflect would be a better pick.

Q. How Do I Back Up My PC Software?

Most backup programs do make a copy of installed software while cloning the PC. However, while restoring the programs, the installed applications are not seamlessly moved due to license and registry issues. So I would recommend you to back up the setup image of software located on your PC.

Q. Does Windows 10 Have Backup Software?

Windows 10 has a built-in backup utility called File History. You can use it from Windows Settings -> Update and Security -> Backup tab. You can learn the steps from our article on how to create a backup using Windows 10’s backup utility.

Best Backup Software For PCs

So, here are some options for the best local and cloud-based backup software and services which you can use to secure your data. Certain services such as O&O AutoBackup, CrashPlan, CloudBerry, and iDrive also support encryption of data for improved protection of data.

If you want basic cloud storage, you can go for popular solutions like Google Drive or Dropbox. Alternatively, you can opt for CloudBerry if you own a business and want to keep your data backed up and protected on the cloud.

We have attempted to cover all possible options for backup software for saving files and taking drive backups onto physical drives as well as kept the growing popularity of cloud storage in mind. Do you think any other software deserves to a listed among these best backup software? Do let us know in the comments below!