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#11
I would suggest Aomei backupper, only due to the fact that it would do the both jobs you would need to perform to meet your safety needs
You can use it to automatically create an image file of you system disk or partition (you would need to keep system and data separate which make good sense anyway, and is not that difficult these days with 3rd party disk managers ), which would include the hidden boot partition[s] that is part of today's default windows install
You can then put together a series of file backups to be run as you wish based on variations on Location and file types (great to prevent backing up temporary, or other non required files), you could set up to backup your system once a week and also a data file backup that runs once a week with differential backups running daily.
You could backup things such as your samples occasionally, and day to day work daily or even hourly if it's ultra critical
You can achieve these using separate systems, but it's better, in my opinion, to learn one software package if it's as important as your data, (the system setup is important but is relatively simple to recover from a disaster than your irreplaceable data )
I would suggest that you retain the external drive for backups exclusively and your D: drive for your samples and other data, this would allow you to keep our backups disconnected from your system except when actually being made - a good idea for ransomware protection