I have had backups of other stuff on CD fail at the same time my cpu crashed and lost everything (thankfully before I started adding digital pix, but still lost all my documents, email addresses, favorite website links etc).

Since I have about 52 GB of photos on my computer now I do a fair back up system. Not perfect by any 'professional' standard, but I think I pretty much have my butt covered, short of my entire city disintegrating.

Anyways I have a minimum of FOUR backups of all my pix.

1) Main desktop built in hard drive (this is the main computer I do my photos on) Full back up.

2) External USB harddrive on top of the computer desk (I'm not positive on the exact model number but THIS one is very close to the one I got at Staples) Full back up.

3) Laptop (only a partial backup of just finished .jpeg images, not the original RAW files. On all the other backups I have both because I wouldn't want to reprocess that many pix again.)

4) DVD full back up (holds ALOT more than CD's ever thought of and takes up alot less space to store) I keep the DVD's at my mom's house in a fireproof box(offsite back up).

**as a side note, I NEVER erase my digital memory cards until I have at least two of the backups done and checked each for verification of transfer.

Should any one drive fail, I'd have 2 other back ups to retrieve the info from. Even (heaven forbid) should my whole house disinegrate (assuming the laptop is here at the time) I'd still have my DVD's from my mom's house.

Hope that helps you.

Personally while I know that alot of people use online offsite back ups, I tend to be very leary of the free ones, and even some paid ones. Since I'm not that familiar with how they work, what they might do with my info/pictures, or how secure the site is; I tend to steer clear. Most of the 'professionals' back up on paid sites with secure systems, but I doubt the avg. user just wanting to make sure they don't lose their info would need that kind of service.