I have WHS server running in the garage, which does a full backup every night - everything including the operating system. Takes about an hour over my network.

So if my HDD failed, I just swap the HDD, insert the restore disc, pick the date that I want restoring to and leave it to restore.

Once done, power it on and everything are there including software. No reinstalling needed.

You can even "browse" the folders of each backups made, so you can restore one or 100 files.

It's a lifesaver for me...