Dropbox is a PC builder’s best friend
A Verge senior editor recounts how using Dropbox to back up his home-built PC's files saved him after two separate hard drive failures, arguing that cloud backup is essential insurance for anyone with a lot of important local data. He set up Dropbox to mirror his work partition after taking on a large crowdfunded project in 2018, and it later proved its worth when two 2TB Samsung SSDs unexpectedly failed and became undetectable on boot.
Both times, the drive itself turned out to be the sole point of failure, and having everything already synced to Dropbox meant no data was lost. The writer pays roughly $204 a year for a six-member family plan, while a solo user plan costs about $120 a year for 2TB or $143 for 3TB; he also notes alternatives such as Backblaze's unlimited $99-a-year personal backup, Apple iCloud Plus, and Adobe Creative Cloud backups for those in different ecosystems.
- Writer's two SSDs failed, but Dropbox backups saved his files
- Dropbox family plan costs about $204 a year for six users
- Alternatives include Backblaze, iCloud Plus and Adobe Creative Cloud
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Dropbox is a cloud storage and file-syncing service that lets people store copies of their files online and access them from any device. It has long been used as a way to back up important data automatically, so that if something goes wrong with a computer, the files still exist elsewhere.
Building your own PC means choosing and fitting your own components, including storage drives, which can fail without warning. When a drive fails, any files stored only on it can be lost for good, which is why many enthusiasts and professionals pair local storage with a backup service as a safety net.
This matters because cloud backup services, of which Dropbox is one of several alongside options like Backblaze, Apple iCloud and Adobe Creative Cloud, are marketed as insurance against exactly this kind of data loss, and their real-world usefulness is often best illustrated through personal experience.