If you do photo editing, I agree. If you do not do photo editing, then your most vital files should not be more than few gigabytes in size, in which case, the more convenient solution is backing up to the cloud. You can even sign up to multiple services and add the same files to them for added redundancy. For example, I use Dropbox, Skydrive Sugarsync, multiple google accounts (which can be managed simultaneously on the same computer using InSync) all for free. Some of these services even allow me to recover deleted files or previous versions of them.
The only reason you might still want to back up your entire hard drive is if you are too lazy to reinstall the OS and the applications in the unlikely event your OS crashes, but the inconvenience of regularly backing up is worse IMO.
Edit: You can unsync from some accounts so you can have backup ability to a certain point of time.
If you do photo editing, I agree. If you do not do photo editing, then your most vital files should not be more than few gigabytes in size, in which case, the more convenient solution is backing up to the cloud. You can even sign up to multiple services and add the same files to them for added redundancy. For example, I use Dropbox, Skydrive Sugarsync, multiple google accounts (which can be managed simultaneously on the same computer using InSync) all for free. Some of these services even allow me to recover deleted files or previous versions of them.
The only reason you might still want to back up your entire hard drive is if you are too lazy to reinstall the OS and the applications in the unlikely event your OS crashes, but the inconvenience of regularly backing up is worse IMO.
Edit: You can unsync from some accounts so you can have backup ability to a certain point of time.
That’s “something of this sort”. :) On the other hand, you might ask yourself how much time you’d actually lose to a total drive failure.
Happens every morning while I sleep without intervention on my part.