It is always better to invest in a web hosting company that offers backup solution for your web site. The following are some of the common reasons that confirm the need of web hosting backup plans.

* In case the hard drive of your server machine fails due to any reason.
* Web hosting backups is necessary in case you delete all your data accidentally, or if the database gets infected by any virus.
* Often many people ignore the necessity of keeping a back up of their server hard drive while reloading an operation system.
* Web hosting backups are absolutely essential if you are using a shared server. There are many instances where a single account of a shared hosting server has crashed the entire server.
* Keeping back ups for web hosting are also essential if you are planning to change your web hosting service provider.

I believe that is something end user should take care of unless web hosting provider offer that as addon paid feature.

I have seen data backup is offered by some companies (sevoiceanddata) as a separate service.
Think that's very convenient to keep all your files in another certain place.

Backing up is a NO-BRAINER. It is the host's responsibility to offer it (mine does, yours should too) and it is your responsibility to actually carry out the backing up process.

The easiest method I found with my host is to use the CPanel integrated back up manager. It allows you to download your content into a zipped file. Then when you want to back up, you simply just upload it and it automatically unzips it for you.

Painless, necessary, and TOO important to skimp on.

The subject of an important and profitable

Even if your hosting provider offers you "regular offsite backups", it is still recommended that you keep backups of your own website just in case. Most control panels make this very easy to do - it only takes about a minute to download a complete backup of your entire website