The problem I have with this download a copy approach is that it's not a great backup (not automatic, not easy to find individual things to restore, etc).
For that, I use CloudPull from http://goldenhillsoftware.com and it's by far the best Google backup tool I've found. I've tried gmvault, fetchmail, offlineimap, and pretty much every thing in between.
CloudPull supports Gmail, Google Contacts, Google Calendar, and Google Drive/Docs. The app backs up Google accounts in the background and all the data is available in standard file formats.
Anyway, I don't think enough people know about it. If you want a useful automatic backup of your Google life, give it a whirl. It's one of my favorite pieces of software.