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How to backup your hard drive to Google Drive

Data backup is one of the most important aspects of modern computing. How would you feel if you lost a lifetime of photos, all your treasured videos, all the important documents you own, and your entire media collection just because your hard drive died?

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Using Google Drive for data backup

The feature is made possible by a new Google tool called Backup and Sync. It allows you to choose which folders on your desktop you want to keep backed up. All changes you make to folders and new files you add to them will automatically be reflected in the cloud-based version.

To get started, pull up the new tool from the Google website (or from your Google Drive account). Sign in with the account you want to send the backups to.

How to backup your hard drive to Google Drive

On the next screen, the app will ask you to choose the folders you want to back up. Click Choose another folder to select a location that is not automatically available. Make your selection and hit Next .

How to backup your hard drive to Google Drive

On the last screen, choose whether to reverse sync your existing Drive files on your computer.

Finally, select start and the synchronization will start. As long as the program is running, all future changes will be automatically synced.

How to backup your hard drive to Google Drive

Although it's free, it can be expensive

Right now, the biggest drawback to using the tool is the cost. Sure, the tool itself is free, but Google limits you to 15 GB of free space in your Drive account. If you want to use Drive to back up your entire hard drive, you'll need to purchase more storage.

And that extra storage isn't exactly cheap:100GB will set you back $2/mo, while 1TB costs $10/mo (and that's probably what you'll need to back up an entire hard drive).

Will you use Google Drive to back up your hard drive, or will you continue to use your own external storage media? file backups? Here's what you need to know if you want to make an informed decision. Read more ? Let us know in the comments.