CHOICE recommends a score of 70% or better overall, although you should also consider the other performance results and features to see how each service performs in the areas you consider most important.

This overall score is based on scores for ease of use (60%), performance (30%), and versatility (10%).

Ease of use includes assessment of the ease of backup (45%), ease of restoring (45%) and setup (10%).

Versatility includes assessment of what each program can do, including: full system backup (disk image); backup of external drives and NAS (network-attached storage) drives; backup to a local destination; seeding and physical media delivery; and capabilities of the mobile Android and iOS apps.

Performance score includes single file backup and restore, folder backup and restore, plus system impact score.

All prices are based on yearly subscriptions in Australian dollars.

The online storage space available for backup, based on the selected plan. Other capacity options may be available and prices will vary.

Active storage means you can download your data immediately or after a short while, while cold storage means retrieving your data could take hours.

The country your data is stored in.

The number of computers covered by the selected backup plan.

The encryption protocol used by default to encrypt files backed up by the service. OpenDrive Personal features a 'Secure' folder that uses 256-bit AES encryption and a password that is known only to the user.

Whether the selection of files and folders for initial backup is automatically determined by the program or allows for manual selection by the user.

The set of files and folders automatically included in the program's backup set by default. 

Whether the user can select the types of files the program should include in the backup set.

Can create a complete system disk image of the computer, rather than just a file and folder backup.

Whether the vendor will let you send initial backup data to the service on a hard drive to speed up the initial backup process.

Automatic backup of Outlook email. For iDrive Personal the user must grant impersonation rights to allow iDrive to access Office 365 mailbox account in order to back up a mailbox.

The various times options for scheduling automated backups.

Whether the service can back up to a local storage drive as well as online.

Whether the service can back up an attached USB hard drive. Backblaze Unlimited Backup can back up USB hard drives or SSD drives, but will not back up USB sticks.

Whether the service can back up a NAS (network-attached storage) drive on the local network.  The following will back up folders from a NAS device that are mapped on a computer: Adrive Personal Premium, OpenDrive Personal, Spideroak One Backup, Polar Backup Personal and ElephantDrive Home. iDrive Personal can back up a NAS device to iDrive as long as there is an iDrive app available for that NAS device's operating system. LiveDrive Personal Backup requires the purchase of an add-on to do this.

Whether the service can do incremental backup (which contains only those files which have been altered since the last backup). For Acronis True Image 2021 Advanced, an incremental backup scheme is default for the cloud location, but can be changed manually when backing up to a local external or network drive. Backblaze Unlimited will back up a file from the point the data has changed, not only add the new data.

Whether the service supports archiving of files in addition to backup.

Whether the service can put files and folders back in their original location.

Whether the service can restore individual files (rather than just backup sets).

Whether files can be kept online after being deleted from user's computer. For Jottacloud Personal, data from deleted local folders will remain on the server if the backup job still exists – once the backup job is removed, the data is also removed from the server. For Spideroak One Backup, files deleted from the backed up computer will be stored in SpiderOak's Deleted items folder with no time limit.

Whether the service keeps multiple versions of each file for retrieval of older versions if necessary.

Whether the service can access files through a web browser.

If and how the service lets you control the amount of internet bandwidth dedicated to backups.

If the service lets you control the amount of resources used for backup to minimise impact on your computer's normal operations.

The types of desktop and mobile computers/operating systems the service works with. For Backblaze Unlimited Backup, apps for Android and iOS are available to access data that has been backed up.

If and how the service lets you search for individual files.

If the service lets you share files.

Whether the service lets you set up a synchronisation folder as well as backups.

Whether the service provides an emailed summary of backups.