Backup shortcomings

Surprised to see no comment about the very obvious & long-standing failure of MS to incorporate a reliable backup facility.I have Outlook 2003 & still can't do auto backup in a way I regard as reliable so I choose to do this manually.I always say yes to an auto-suggestion to archive but I have no idea where the archive is or of it is also backed up.Pretty important that you never loose email records & yet a two position manual backup seems the only way to achieve this.