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Originally Posted by B-flat
This is great advice, I too worked in the IT field and what davephan is suggesting what I would do too if I were using Windows. After retirement I moved to Apple devices, they have been trouble free.
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My wife and I also moved on to MacBook Pro computers. At least 99% of the time, the MacBooks are connected to 43 inch Samsung 4K TV for the monitors, mouse, and Matias Quiet Pro full sized keyboards. However, on trips, we can use the laptops alone. Typing on a laptop keyboard is a royal pain, so the Matias Quiet Pro keyboard is worth the $150 cost, much more costly than a typical Windows keyboard.
I still have a couple of Windows computers around for a couple programs that only run on Windows. But the vast majority of the time, we use the Mac computers, which are a lot less trouble to maintain than Windows computers. After getting used to Mac computers, the Windows computers seem very crude, barbaric, and full of security holes that constantly need patching. I also had to do the constant Windows patching on hundreds of Windows servers.
Unfortunately, Apple Cloud backups only works on iPhones and iPads, not MacBooks. You have to backup with a USB hard drive with the MacBook using Time Machine. Time Machine to the Apple Cloud isn't an option for some unknown reason. I also use Acronis on the Mac to have automated backups in the encrypted cloud. Maybe someday, the Apple engineers will wise up and allow Time Machine to backup to the Apple Cloud, something practical, instead of creating endless Emoji's that people don't need.
I backup my Windows computers with Acronis True Image. We started doing backups and recoveries decades ago with Norton Ghost. Version 7 and later were very reliable recoveries. After I retired, my work switched to another backup recovery method that is less reliable. I think that bare metal recoveries weren't even possible with that other backup / recovery software. Differential hardware recoveries might not have been possible either. I also heard that after I retired, my former company got burned because they couldn't successfully do recoveries. When you're in that line of work, you have to perfect your backup and recovery methods, and actually test your recoveries on "test" servers. We also had redundant backup methods. After a couple decades of that line of work, I never ran into a situation where I couldn't recover a Windows server.
The company I worked for was stupid, and didn't backup each Windows workstation and laptop. Only limited files were backed up. Then when someone's workstation or laptop failed, they lost hundreds of hours of productive work time, while the user tried to re-create their computer environment, programs, and settings from a generic base image. Some companies never learn how important proper backups are for every computer, including workstations and laptops in their corporate environment. They even had some Windows servers, out of my area that weren't backed up or patched, and didn't reboot for years!