Repair or replace? Which upgrade pays off? Is the slowdown fixable or is it time? Plain-spoken maths and honest guides for everyday PC problems — type your question and get a straight answer in seconds. The full detailed report costs less than a coffee: $2.95.
Nobody plans to lose their files; they plan to back up later. This tool makes the decision concrete by putting a price on both sides: the cost of a proper 3-2-1 backup — a local drive plus an off-site copy — versus what recreating your irreplaceable data would cost in hours of your time. The maths is the honest heart of the tool: when recreation cost beats yearly backup cost, the backup is not an expense, it is the cheap option. The verdict also covers the compromises people actually make — cloud only, drive only, no backup at all — and why the off-site copy is the one that saves you from fire, theft and ransomware.
Put a real price on your files — what recreating them would cost in time — against the honest yearly cost of a 3-2-1 backup (two local copies, one off-site).
Three copies of your data: your working copy, a local backup (external drive or NAS), and one more — with two of the three on different media types and one copy stored off-site. It is the industry standard because it survives drive failure, theft, fire and ransomware.
Typically $50-100 once for a local backup drive plus $2-10 a month for cloud backup of typical home data — under one coffee a month at the cheap end. Compared with hundreds of hours of recreation time, it is one of the cheapest insurances you can buy.
No. Cloud alone fails you when you need a file fast, when the upload is too slow to be practical, or if you lose access to the account. The 3-2-1 rule exists because each copy has a different job: local for speed, off-site for disasters.
Every tool answers instantly from our own knowledge and calculators — no AI wait, no account. Honest maths and plain guidance, always educational and never pushy about buying new gear: repair, upgrade, backup and security decisions explained in language a human actually uses. Results are estimates and guides, not guarantees, and nothing you type is stored. Want the deeper, personalised version? Each has a $2.95 full report.