How to Backup Hard Drive to Google Drive in 2 Ways - Full Guide

Why Is It Necessary to Backup Hard Drive to Google Drive 

Hard drives are a lot cheaper than SSDs for some reason, but there are other benefits why people choose them, considering their capacity and availability. However, there is no denying that it has a fatal disadvantage. They are easily damaged, slow down, and eventually, break over time. This problem has been solved with the advent of cloud backups like Google Drive. 

As one of the main cloud storage worldwide, Google Drive is popular among many users. Therefore, some users using hard drives to store data may wonder if they can backup hard drive to cloud, like Google Drive. The answer is YES backup to the cloud has more benefits than other types of backup. Some advantages are listed below:

• 🔒Data protection: Moving hard drive data to Google Drive protects data in case of disk error or hard drive damage.
• 🎯Easy accessibility: Users can access their files from any endpoint from anywhere on the internet.
• 🎨Convenient sharing: Easy to share files for the users with a group or a team.
• ☁️Large storage capacity: Google Drive can back up data from many hard drives.

How to Backup Hard Drive to Google Drive in 2 Ways

Suppose you want to back up your hard drives to Google but don't know how to do it. We offer you two straightforward ways to move your data from a hard drive to Google Drive. One is with Google Drive for Desktop, and the other with a third-party tool - EaseUS Todo Backup. But the two tools work differently.

As for Google Drive, it syncs files from a hard drive to Google servers and only applies to files and folders. However, third-party software can create a full backup of the entire disk at once, which can save you a lot of time. In addition, it saves the files on the hard drive as an image. You need to restore image files whenever you want to use them. 

1. Way 1: Third-party Google Drive Backup Software for Hard Drive Backup - Automatically
2. Way 2: Backup Hard Drive via Google Drive for Desktop - Manually

Given the variety and simplicity of backups, I recommend using EaseUS Todo Backup as the best way. You can keep reading the following contents to finish your transfer.

Way 1️⃣ Third-party Google Drive Backup Software for Hard Drive Backup Automatically

EaseUS Todo Backup is free backup software that can be used to back up your files, system, and hard drives to local or cloud. It supports different kinds of cloud backup destinations, including Google Drive, Dropbox, and OneDrive. You can follow the guideline to back up your hard drive to Google Drive.

Step 1. Start with selecting the backup contents.

Step 2. There are four backup categories, File, Disk, OS, and Mail, click Disk.

Step 3. It is available to back up a whole disk or a certain partition. Choose the one you need and click OK.

Step 4.  Select the destination where you want to save the backup.

Step 5. For disk/partition backup, you can choose to save the backup to local drive or to NAS.

Step 6. After the backup process is completed, your task will be displayed at the left. Right-click any one of the task, you can further manage your backup such as recover it, create incremental backup, etc.

🎀Related Reading: How to Backup Google Drive to External Hard Drive | How to Backup Google Photos to Hard Drive

Way 2️⃣ Backup Hard Drive via Google Drive for Desktop Manually

Besides the best backup way provided by a third-party tool, you can also rely on official backup tools provided by Google.

Google Drive has an official website that allows you to back up files to Google cloud and access the files that you've saved on Google Drive quickly. But the desktop version is superior in terms of features. The main difference is that Drive for Desktop is more suitable for organizations because it lets you stream both Shared Drive and My Drive files from the cloud. It can free up disk space, decrease the time needed to sync files, and facilitate the upload and download of files. To help you back up and sync files to Google Drive more easily, you can download Google Drive for your desktop and follow the steps.

Step 1. Download and install Google Drive for desktop on your computer.

Step 2. Sign in to your Google Account.

Step 3. On the screen of My computer, click Add folder and the app will prompt you to choose which folders you want to back up. Then click "Sync with Google Drive" to confirm. 

Step 4. Hit Save and the syncing will begin. All future changes will be automatically synced.

🚩You may be interested: How to Backup USB to Google Drive

Wrapping Things Up

Backing up hard drives to Google Drive brings great convenience for data accessibility, and also protects your data safe and sound. Both ways we mentioned above can save the files on hard drive to Google Drive smoothly.

According to the 3-2-1 backup rule, we know that it is always advised not to keep all copies of the data on one platform. So EaseUS Todo Backup offers multiple backup paths to help us back up data more efficiently, quickly, and safely. What's more, you can transfer files from Google drive to Dropbox or OneDrive. Now do not hesitate to download and enjoy the benefits.

How to Backup Hard Drive to Google Drive FAQs

1. What is the difference between Google Drive and Backup and Sync?

They have the same objective: to provide a sync solution where users can access their files much more conveniently. While Backup and Sync is mostly used to sync and store Drive locally on your computer, Drive for Desktop streams all your content from the cloud

2. Where is Google Drive stored?

The files you add to your Google Drive app or folder are stored on servers in secure data centers. Your data stored with Google is encrypted during the transfer from your computer - and while it sits on Google Drive servers

3. Why did Google remove Backup and Sync?

The change is because the new application is essentially a unified sync client for business, educational, and personal users. You have to make the transition over to Drive for Desktop.