+1 for tru image, I have used it to save the day in the past - one thing with cloning a disk, it makes sense to clone it once when you believe you have the perfect set up.
This way, if you have to restore, you get back to a perfect configuration, otoh, if you back up weekly, daily or monthly, you are getting the system in the state it is at the point of backup, so if it's falling over & you restore a recent backup, you may well be importing your problems once again.