Always have local and offsite backup, so you can get to it quick when the laptop dies, but still have options when the house burns down. For me that is:

* Connect an external drive every few days for Time Machine to do it's magic. If I forget, it will remind me after a week or so.

* Continuous offsite backup using Backblaze. Really, they're great!

If you want continuous backup locally too, you could use a NAS for Time Machine to backup to instead of a simple drive.