About as much fun as changing dirty diapers. Or actually, much worse. You can also perform a data-only backup, protecting just your data files and not the programs on your system. This can be especially efficient for users in a hurry, like laptop users where you might protect their entire hard drives via a full backup once a month or so and then backup the data much more often. Full backups are always the most desirable though.
Tape backup is the most traditional approach.
But the same thing could be done for backup purposes. As to tape drives, a myriad of products to choose from but our favorites are from the Hewlett-Packard Surestore Series. Something for everyone. Another interesting approach is to use the latest removable cartridge drive systems. Very interesting alternative to single-purpose tape backup systems which can not be used for ordinary daily data and program storage and access.