If you are using Windows 10 there is backup built in. Just plug in a portable hard drive and activate the "File History" application directed to the hard drive, it backs up constantly. Easy peasy. I think it might work in Windows 8 too.

I don't store anything on my company computer hard drive. Everything's stored on the network drives and automatically backed up by IT. So when my company computer dies, which happens more often than you'd think, I just call IT and have them bring me a new computer. No muss not fuss.

There are a myriad of backup options. All of them are a pain to maintain.

In the end I just set my computers up as a a mirrored pair of hard drives. Most modern computers have the motherboard setup to just build a raid right into the BIOS of the computer. Having two drives in not 100% secure but if one drive fails, it warns you a drive is bad and it is easy to swap in a replacement. It rebuilds the data on the fly and all is well. That will not work for laptops since few have room for multiple internal hard drives. The odds of two drives failing at the same time is a lot lower than on hard drive failure.

Don't agree. The synology was a little work to set up, but it's transparent now.

Whatever you choose, actually check files once in a while and make sure it is actually backing up files. Years ago I had a 'pro' set up a server with a tape backup, and their logic was bad, no files were backing up...

what I am doing
 

What I am doing is to full backup my system monthly and incremental backup other data everyday. And I'am using AOMEI Backupper, which supporting to automatically run the backup job I need. :)

What I'm doing is to full backup my system monthly and to incremental backup other data everyday. And I am using AOMEI Backupper, which supports to automatically run the backup job I need.