I'm going to go along with "Mike" on Ghost.
Since, like, forever, long before there was Acronis, or any other backup system, even Windows 7, there was Ghost (circa 1997).
Before that, there was the DOS Backup command and PC Tools (Central Point Software) Backup.
But I got a copy of Ghost, directly from the writers in New Zealand in 1997, fell in love with its simplicity and I've been using it ever since.
Ghost 2003 (late version) works a treat to back up any MS OS up through Windows XP. For Windows Vista or Win-7, Ghost 11.5 (DOS, or Windows) works great. It looks and acts the same as Ghost 2003 to there's no re-learning curve when upgrading to it.
There's a lot to be said for just backing up the entire C: drive and doing that from a DOS boot disk. That takes windows completely out of the equation. I have Ghost 2003 on a floppy disk, CD and Flash Drive. I have Ghost 11.5 (DOS version) on a CD, Flash Drive and SD Flash memory card.
Doing a very thorough cleanup on your HD before starting a backup will keep the resulting Backup File as small as possible. So, with that in mind, when I built my DOS boot disk for Ghost, I installed a Ansi-Color DOS menu system with a number of batch files to clean out most all of the junk files on the hard drive, even old System Restore files. I even use NTFS4DOS on my Ghost 11.5 disks, to open up an NTFS drive so I can access and remove all the junk files, before actually running Ghost to start the backup.
I shouldn't have to remind any knowledgeable user about the benefit of totally cleaning out their HD every week and then backing it up.
NO ONE knows the day or hour, that their HD will go up in a big puff of smoke. I've had several drives do that to me over the past 30 years, but do to an aggressive backup policy, I've never lost anything important.
I do a full Drive C: backup at least once a week, to a Storage drive. I force a System Restore Point to be created every time I boot up my PC and I have to rely on System Restore at least once a week, to fix some little X'up or another. I test a lot of software and some is good, some not so good and some just plain rotten.
Daily I create or modify several data files on my PC. I guess I'm what you'd call an "Active" user.
So to protect myself against file loss, between Ghost backups, I use a simple batch file, to copy all new or modifies data files to my storage drive. Since it copies only New or Changed files, it runs in just seconds. I run it manually from a desktop shortcut, but it could also be run from the Task Manager, the Startup folder or as part of my shutdown routine. A batch file is extremely flexible. DOS Rocks!
Well, that's MY backup strategy. The only BAD backup is the one you decided you didn't need to do. rofl
Cheers mates!
Old Timer