External HD v. DVD for Archiving

[CJD]

This subject it just such a no brainer.

Get a big hard drive Internal HD for Primary Data
Get another big internal HD
Get a big external HD

Use MirrorSoft to back up primary HD in real time to internal & external HDs.

when you leave the house, take external HD or put somewhere "safe".

Always backed up on two HD locations.  In real time.  Never worry again about HD failure.

My next HD purchase will be one of the new LaCie 1 TB units.

[Jonathan Wienke]

So you keep a set of HDs in a separate physical location and rotate drives for fire safety?

(Used to that in the olden days when the only affordable way to back up was on video tape.  A,B,C copies.  Always one in the second locale.)

My primary file server is a smallish Win2K box with a 300GB RAID5 array, I have a secondary 700GB RAID5 NAS, and then a USB2 removable drive enclosure with a collection of 250GB single drives that can go off-site.