I've been trialling Crashplan as I like the idea alot, but it will take about a year to do the initial backup so seemed a bit pointless. I also found the software slowed my laptop down a lot.
I read somewhere that data doesn't really exist unless it is saved in two places, and I really like that it reminds me that backups are important (that and almost losing all my SG supplies a year ago due to EHD failure). My current back up is:
* windows file history copies documents to EHD when it is plugged in
* cobian backup runs weekly incremental backup to EHD of documents, downloads, emails ... anything on laptop I may want in future
* allway sync to copy files from EHD to another EHD that I keep in my locker at work
* scrap supplies are on EHD and cobian backup runs weekly to copy these to another computer on our network
* our photos are stored on a desktop computer that has a raid so if hard drive fails we have a second copy
I have two concerns about this sytem:
* it relies on me plugging in my EHD which I haven't done for a week
* our photos are protected from hard drive failure, but not not someone deleting them so I have started making folder read only once I've sorted them, and there is no offsite protection. The plan is to create a NAS in the garage which will give some additional protection.
Now I've got myself worried again that we're not doing enough. Back up is so hard.