That is far from horrible advice. And you are taking "locally" way too literally. You get to define what "locally" means. It definitely means "not trusting a third party with your important data".
In my case it means that I keep three full backups of everything at three different locations and with various incremental and full-backup schedules. Old data that doesn't see a lot of activity is archived and even burned to DVD and stored in a fire-proof safe. I know that some of it is a bit extreme, but I actually take my work product very seriously and most of it represents "cubic hours" of work. I take the position that my business data is my responsibility and I store it "locally" with enough redundancy that it would take a pretty major event for a significant chunk to be lost.
That does NOT mean that I don't use remote storage/backup services. It DOES mean that I operate as if they could be reduced to dust tomorrow. Which, in turn, means that I have all of the convenience some of these services offer while not having to worry too much about issues at the backup provider ruining my life.
In my case it means that I keep three full backups of everything at three different locations and with various incremental and full-backup schedules. Old data that doesn't see a lot of activity is archived and even burned to DVD and stored in a fire-proof safe. I know that some of it is a bit extreme, but I actually take my work product very seriously and most of it represents "cubic hours" of work. I take the position that my business data is my responsibility and I store it "locally" with enough redundancy that it would take a pretty major event for a significant chunk to be lost.
That does NOT mean that I don't use remote storage/backup services. It DOES mean that I operate as if they could be reduced to dust tomorrow. Which, in turn, means that I have all of the convenience some of these services offer while not having to worry too much about issues at the backup provider ruining my life.