I am hoping someone can give me some basic advice, on a sensible way to configure backups, to be fairly easy to do, and to use, should I ever have a problem.

I have a Dell XPS, with two, seperate 500GB hard drives. I have online storage which is adequate for critical DATA. I have a 500GB ext drive.

Fairly early on, I had a corruption (probably due to my incompetance when transferring files from old laptop), and had to re-install operating system, and rebuild everything, from scatch, at the same time as being bombarded with dozens of updates. I don't particularly want to go through that again.

I noted several positive comments about Acronis TI, on this site, so have downloaded, initially, a trial version of it. It seems to offer a bewildering array of clever options, most of which go over my head, technically. Can anyone point me in the right direction of what I really NEED to do, to ensure that, if, say, I should have a "C" drive failure, recovery will not be too onerous.

I don't tend to do a lot on a daily basis, but may do a reasonable batch of work, over a weekend. Can anyone, perhaps, recommend an article, or literature, which explains the options, in terms that don't require a degree in computing.

Many thanks.