In recent weeks, you may have come across the unfortunate story of the OneDrive user who found they were locked out of 30 years' worth of work and data after Microsoft—apparently without any explanation or warning—revoked access to their cloud storage locker and everything inside it.
I'm not going to get into the details of that particular case here, but it's a reminder that you really need more than one backup to be fully sure that your digital safety net is big enough. From hacks to floods, the number of ways that your files can be destroyed are many and varied, and we've written before about the dangers of relying on just one backup for the files that are most important to you.
As you might expect from someone who's signed up to three music streaming services, I also pay for more than one cloud storage service. Admittedly it's an extra cost, but if you think about how important your data is, you may find it worth the investment too—here's the case for doing it and a few tips for making it work.
Choose your cloud storage services
Not all cloud storage services are created equal, and you'll need to do a little planning when it comes to picking which ones to combine. Apple's iCloud Drive service works perfectly on Apple devices, for example, but support is more patchy for Windows computers and non-existent for your Android phones and tablets.
Dropbox is one of the better choices for additional backups, because it's not associated with any of the big three as far as mobile and desktop platforms go: Apple, Microsoft, and Google. It works efficiently and quietly in the background across Android, iOS, Windows, and macOS, and integrates neatly with all of them. Proton Drive is another good alternative to the big three.
When making your choice, I'd recommend looking at the desktop and mobile clients that are available, as well as the web interfaces: If you lose access to your main devices, you may have to rely on the web apps to get at your important data, so being able to open up files, share them, and move them around is important.
Look for the extras you get as well: Pay $20 per month for Google AI Pro (previously Google One AI Premium), and not only do you get 2TB of cloud storage to play around with, you also get access to the best Gemini AI models. With Microsoft OneDrive, meanwhile, you can pay $10 a month for both 1TB of storage and all the desktop Office apps.
Keep everything working together
Ideally you want a laptop or a desktop to be your main hub for multiple backups, because it's a little easier to manage multiple apps and services than it is on a phone or tablet. Try and consolidate everything in one folder and its subfolders, so you always know what's being backed up and what isn't.
Check inside the settings for your chosen apps, and you should find you can configure which folders are included in the backup. The clients for Apple iCloud, Google Drive, and Microsoft OneDrive can all sync files from your desktop as well as your user account folders, for example—it's just a question of picking the right folders from a list.
Another feature common across most cloud storage services is the option to keep local copies of files as well as those in the cloud: You'll usually be pushed to only use file placeholders on your laptop or desktop, in the interests of freeing up hard drive space, but if you have the room, it's best to keep full copies of everything for all the reasons already mentioned (and if your internet goes down).
With two-way syncing configured on your selected cloud storage services, any changes made locally will be synced to the cloud, and vice versa. There's always the danger of accidentally deleting files—which will delete copies in every location—but all the major cloud storage apps will warn you about mass deletions, and keep deleted files for several weeks in case you need to bring them back.
Try and keep costs down
I appreciate that we're living in costly times, and you're probably already paying for enough digital subscriptions as it is—adding another expense on top just in case Google's cloud storage servers fail may seem excessive. But these problems do happen.
One way to try and keep costs down is to share one or more cloud storage services with other people. Many of the big providers offer family plans, so you can share the financial burden with a loved one—or maybe they can keep a second backup for you, and you can keep a second backup for them, to avoid paying twice over. Look out for bundled services too, like Apple One.
You can also make use of the free storage allocations that are available. These are pretty paltry—15GB for Google Drive, Google Photos and Gmail, for example—but if you're using them as emergency rather than primary backups, there may be enough room to store your most important files, the ones that you absolutely can't do without.
If you're unable or unwilling to sign up for another cloud storage provider, consider creating a secondary backup on an external hard drive, and regularly refreshing the files on it: You'll still be able to access it if something happens to your cloud storage. Just make sure it's not in the same physical location as your laptop or desktop, because fire, flood, or theft could quickly wipe out both copies of your files in one go.
