Nero BackItUp is a cloud storage solution and a component of many Nero suites and applications. It's also available as a standalone product that is paid for on a subscription basis. Competing directly with services and Dropbox and Google Drive, Nero BackItUp is in a crowded and growing market. It puts a media-specific spin on its own offering.

Nero BackItUp is marketed as a general cloud storage service for any files or media, but it can also be backed up to local media - hard drives, USB storage, DVD, network drive and so on. The latter is a mark of its legacy; it's a pre-cloud product which has been adapted to include a cloud storage option as the market has grown.

Like some of its competitors, Nero BackItUp saves different file versions for simple recovery of older files. It has backup apps for iOS and Android, in addition to the Windows version. One account lets users back up a maximum of 5 PCs or laptops via the free software; there's no limit to the number of mobile devices that can be backed up.

All of the Nero BackItUp subscriptions include encryption and compression to make sure storage is fast and secure.

There are 3 price tiers depending on the volume of storage space you need:

• 5 PRO is an affordable 5GB account with manual backup on demand
• 25 PRO ups the storage to 25GB and includes automatic backup
• The final plan is an unlimited service, which means that there is no storage cap

Remember, though, that uploading gigabytes of data takes a long time - as does retrieving it again. If you opt for unlimited, you'll need a connection that is fast enough to support it.

Nero BackItUp is particularly useful for people who store a lot of home-made content on mobile devices. Once these photos and videos are in the cloud, they can be streamed and shared from anywhere.