As iPhones and iPads replace notebooks and desktop Macs for users, backing up those devices become more and more important. Many iOS users have stated that they have an iCloud backup to me. Yet after having to restore their device they find out that they didn’t have a complete backup.
iCloud backs up a large amount of data from iOS devices but is limited to the iCloud plan the users has. Each iCloud account has 5GB of free storage and a user may purchase additional storage. The additional storage plans are $0.99 a month for 50GB, $2.99 a month for 200GB, and $9.99 a month for the 1TB plan.
Even with a large iCloud storage plan, the user must set up which 3rd-party apps they are backing up. Some apps may default to backing up while others don’t. You can control this by going to Settings > iCloud > Storage > Manage Storage. From this menu you can look at your current backups and see the size of your next backup. iCloud does automatic backups if and only if it is plugged into power and is in sleep mode and is connected to wifi.
Another option users have is to back up their device to iTunes. All you need to do to backup your device to iTunes is plug in your iOS device to your computer running a compatible version of iTunes. Then select the iOS device icon and scroll down the page and select to backup the device using iTunes.
I personally suggest using both iCloud and iTunes. I recently had a customer who lost a very important document on their iPhone. With iCloud’s automatic backups it had already backed up over that document and the only way we were able to recover it was from an iTunes backup.