Backup solutions Options

[cmac]

We've discussed it before, but what are you backup solutions?

I've never backed up and I've been lucky, but I keep hearing horror stories about losing years worth of stuff and frankly I'm becoming paranoid.

To me there's a difference between backup and archive. I'm looking for both solutions.

Backup, to me, is what can keep my current digital data from being lost by a mechanical failure and/or user error.

Archive is the long-term backup. The 'keep this safe in case I need it in 5 years' kind of thing.

I think I would prefer a local solution, as paying someone to store my files monthly seems kind of odd to me, though I guess I already basically pay flickr to store my archives of photos.

Any opinions on Drobo?

[Spectatrix]

If you're just trying to protect yourself from disk failure, the least-effort solution would be to set up a RAID-1 disk array. For protection from some major catastrophe (fire, tornado, etc.), do like others are suggesting and get an external drive to manually back up really important stuff and store in a fireproof safe or similar.