Cloud storage vs cloud backup: what's the difference?

What is the difference between cloud storage and cloud backup?

Cloud storage holds your working data and keeps it in sync. Cloud backup holds independent copies from earlier points in time, kept apart from that working data, so you can restore it.

An office manager deletes a shared folder she thinks is a duplicate. OneDrive removes it from every synced laptop within minutes. Nobody notices for two months. With storage alone, it's probably gone. With a backup, it's a restore. That difference is the whole idea behind backup as a service.

Why isn't OneDrive or Google Drive a backup?

Because they're sync services. Their job is to make every copy of a file identical, everywhere, as fast as possible, and that includes copying mistakes.

Both offer a safety net, but it's short. According to Google Drive Help, "Files remain in Trash for 30 days, then they're deleted forever." Microsoft's OneDrive Files Restore lets Microsoft 365 subscribers undo changes from the last 30 days, and SharePoint keeps deleted items for 93 days, according to Microsoft Support.

Those windows help with yesterday's mistake. They don't help when:

• the loss is noticed after the window has closed;
• someone, or something, empties the recycle bin;
• an attacker with admin rights deletes data and shortens retention;
• a leaver's account is removed and its countdown runs out;
• you're locked out of the account that holds both the data and the recycle bin.

For Microsoft 365 specifically, see does Microsoft 365 back up my data?

Is data in Azure, AWS or Google Cloud storage backed up?

Not automatically. Public cloud storage is replicated for durability, but replication isn't a backup, and data protection stays your responsibility.

Microsoft's Azure Storage redundancy documentation explains why: "All replicas reflect the same current state: deletions and overwrites are applied to all copies simultaneously. Redundancy protects against hardware failure, not against data-modifying operations." Its shared responsibility page adds that customers always remain responsible for their data, accounts and access management. AWS and Google Cloud use the same principle.

Native backup tools inside the same cloud help, but isolation matters. Microsoft's own ransomware-resilient backup architecture guidance advises separate backup administration and, for stronger isolation, a separate subscription or "ideally, a separate Microsoft Entra tenant", because "ransomware operators frequently target backup infrastructure first."

A copy with a different provider goes one step further. Read more for Azure backup and AWS data that isn't a backup yet. And spreading workloads across clouds doesn't solve this either, as we explain in multicloud is not a backup strategy.

What makes a cloud backup a real backup?

Independence, history, immutability and proof. If any one of these is missing, you have a copy, not a recovery plan.

A practical benchmark is the 3-2-1-1-0 rule:

• 3 copies of your data, including production;
• 2 different storage types;
• 1 copy offsite;
• 1 copy immutable or air-gapped, so it can't be changed or deleted;
• 0 errors, confirmed by checking backups and testing restores.

Immutability matters because backups are a target. In a Sophos survey of 2,974 organisations hit by ransomware, 94% said attackers tried to compromise their backups, and 57% of those attempts succeeded. The UK NCSC's principles for ransomware-resistant cloud backups make the same point: backups should be resilient to destructive actions, allow restores from uncorrupted versions and alert on privileged changes.

Our own service follows this model: immutable backups with Object Lock plus an air-gapped copy, every backup job checked automatically, backups scanned for malware and monitoring 24/7, stored in our own Tier III data centres in the Netherlands and Germany.

When do you need cloud storage, cloud backup or both?

Use cloud storage to work and collaborate. Use cloud backup for every system you couldn't afford to lose. For most organisations, that means both.

The threat in the third and fourth rows is common. According to the Verizon 2026 Data Breach Investigations Report, as summarised by Help Net Security, ransomware was involved in 48% of the breaches analysed.

How do you choose a cloud backup for your SaaS and cloud data?

Start from what you'd need to restore and work back. Coverage, independence and restore testing matter more than storage price per gigabyte.

1. List your data. SaaS (Microsoft 365, Google Workspace), servers and virtual machines, public cloud workloads and endpoints.
2. Check coverage. Make sure each workload is supported. We back up Microsoft 365 (Exchange, OneDrive, SharePoint, Teams), Google Workspace (Gmail, Drive, Calendar, Contacts), VMware, Hyper-V, Proxmox, Linux servers, SQL Server, NAS, AWS, Azure, Google Cloud and endpoints.
3. Insist on independence. The backup should sit with a different provider, behind separate credentials, with MFA on admin actions.
4. Check immutability and an air-gapped copy. Ask who can delete a backup before it expires.
5. Look at location and law. Which data centres, which country, which owner? See what data sovereignty means.
6. Test a restore. Ask for granular restore and try it yourself before you sign.

Product details are on our Microsoft 365 backup and Google Workspace backup pages.

What to do next

Cloud storage keeps your data available; cloud backup keeps it recoverable. If your only copy of a file is in OneDrive, Google Drive or a storage bucket, a deletion, sync error or ransomware attack can reach every version of it.

Add an independent, immutable backup for the data you can't lose. See how it works on our backup as a service page, or book a free 15-minute demo and we'll restore a deleted folder in front of you.