I use System Mechanic which backs up the registry, cleans the cache, and hundreds of other maintenance things continuously and automatically. Keeps things running smoothly all the time.
http://www.iolo.com/products/system-mechanic-professional/And for backup, I switched to Carbonite several years ago.
http://www.carbonite.com/Keeps files backed up continuously online and nearly immediately. I then upgraded to Carbonite HomePlus about a year ago. In addition to continuous online file backup, it backs up the entire hard drive once a day to an external hard drive (you furnish). It’s a mirror image: files
and programs
and operating system. If there’s a crash not caused by a hard drive failure, just restore everything. Get a virus? Just restore everything to an earlier date. Takes a few hours to restore, but it works perfectly (more than once). I use a Seagate GoFlex 1 TB Portable External Hard Drive; it goes along in the PC just fine:
http://www.amazon.com/Seagate-FreeAgent-Ultra-Portable-External-STAA1000101/dp/B0045JLPMO/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1378551590&sr=8-2&keywords=goflex+hard+driveAnd I did have hard drive failure three months ago. Dell replaced the hard drive under warranty. Six hours later, I had everything restored on the new hard drive exactly as it was before the failure. Although I’ve never tried it, Carbonite claims you can access files anytime, anywhere from any internet connected computer, smartphone or iPad.
