Of course, a hard disk crash might result in loss of month of data and there maybe no recovery unless you have a backup. Fix your system. Ever tried to reinstall and can't find those updates or drivers. The backup strategy has to be based on individual needs and what is important. This is the oldest and probably still the best way.
Tapes can hold a lot of data and is easily stored and transported.
There are several makers of tape backup hardware and most of it comes with backup software. However, since it is external it provides the ability to use the tape drive on more than one machine. Floppy These connect to the floppy drive connector and are internal. They are also slow and can gain significantly from the use of a floppy accelerator card. Some comes with the card.