Melissa Perenson, with PC World, urges computor users to try “Set it and forget it” backups.  It is mainly an intro to other articles and pointing at some new devices that make backups easy.  I am all about promoting backups, and in fact I am all about making them easy.  However, I would strongly caution against setting it and forgetting it.  When it comes to backups, the easy button is a bit dangerous.  It is a false sense of security blanket.  If your data is important, then backups are actually something you (or someone) needs to pay attention to regularly.  Here are some problems with making backups too easy:
1. Vendors focus on making the backup easy, but how easy is the restore?  Do you even know?  Many reviewers never even test the restore process.  Chances are good you might not find out until you are actually trying the restore, and by then it might be too late.
2. An easy setup might grab far too much data, or it might miss some.  For example, if it grabs your whole drive, you could be backing up unimportant system files, wasting valuable space on your backup media, or worse, paying to store that with an online vendor.  Or, it might miss some, perhaps if you have a folder that isn’t in a standard location, for example.

Those are just a few of the issues.  Real backups take work, and attention, both in the planning stage and in an ongoing maintenance stage.  It can still be easy, but if you want to really feel secure about your data, the setup of the backup should be conscious, not haphazard.