In message , The Medway Handyman writes
Here is my tuppence.
As others have said you need layers of backup, and I'd add, you need it to work automatically. If it needs manual intervention it will fail due to human failure sooner or later. I'd also want anything important business wise to be backed up off site somewhere.
We have a server in the cellar, with a couple of pcs and laptops dotted around. Most data lives on the server so is at least in one place. For stuff that remains on the local PC's it is backed up to the server automatically. Currently Sync Toy runs to copy the stuff over.
I use Fileback PC - which is a paid for program, I've been using it for years and it's always been reliable. It has all sorts of options for backups.
Data is backed up to a ITB external HDD (in this case WD Green drive in a Summvision external case. Fileback is set to keep multiple copies of files for IIRC 30 days. I've recently taken to having 2 external drives and swopping them round with one stored at my parents house, but this relies on me and may only happen every few weeks at best.
So I also use an online service, in my case Mozy.com. Yes I'm trusting my data to a third party, but this is a last resort backup, if the house burns down/gets flooded or all my local copies get destroyed for some reason. We have the paid for service (the cost is small compared to how much we value some of the data), so have an unlimited amount of backup space. We do have a lot of stuff backed up there, as the photos etc. are backed up there. If I ever needed to do a full restore from there it would either take quite a long time to download it all again or cost a lot to have it burnt to DVD and sent.
But really I don't envisage that really being necessary except in extremis, as hopefully all but at worst the last few weeks data will be sitting at my parents house.
I've never had to do a major data restore from there in anger. I do the occasional test restore of some of the data, and have restored small amount of data for real (the 30 days of changed files it stores has been useful few times)
I also use Dropbox for file sharing/access and that would also work well for backing up important files