Maintenance and Backups - When Will This Be Fully Automated?

By all that is right with this world, I hate—really hate—doing backups.

Digital photos by the hundreds (and thousands), documents and spreadsheets on all kinds (by the hundreds at least), e-mail by the bucket load, video files, downloads and you-name-it, accumulate at a spectacular and surprising rate on each and every one of our computers. The more files you create, receive or download, the more there is to back up. The more fragmented things get, the more you need to analyze and maintain your hard drives. The complexity means increased maintenance. Avoid maintenance and backup chores at your peril. Data loss. Bad.

There are reliable, effective maintenance and backup tools out there. A few of them stand out because they're automated. Less work for you. Good.

But come on. Why bother? I mean really now, aren't new hard drives, like, guaranteed or something? Well sure they are. And if they fail during the warranty period, you can usually get a free replacement—minus all the precious data that was stored on the old drive that is. More . . .