Speaking from 25+ years of experience with Lacerte, I have never had an issue with what qbteachmt calls 'mirroring.'  You can pick up the entire data path with a Windows 'cut,' and paste it somewhere else.  Lacerte will keep right on trucking after you point it to the new path in Setup.  The key, as Ashley stated, is that you have to grab all of it.  
I have used non-Lacerte backup methods from tape to external drive (e.g., Seagate) to the cloud, and never had an issue before now.  My 2016 and 2017 files came back uncorrupted, which causes me to suspect something changed to make the 2018 data less robust.  Please note that Ashley's second linked article ('last modified six months ago') says, "you may also perform your normal system backup procedures (tape backup, etc.) to protect against system crashes."  Maybe that is no longer true?
My only issue with the Lacerte backup is that it is manual.  I know myself well enough to know that I will be the unreliable element if a manual solution is the only option.  I don't expect Intuit to endorse a third-party solution, and that's OK.   That's why I came to the user community to ask what solutions others have found trustworthy.