Lots of good posts here.
ONE thing that should stand out...redundancy, and multiple backup places and methods.
CDs/DVDs/BRs...all can degrade, and depend also on the quality of your starting materials...cheap will usually rot quickly.
I'm looking to build a fairly large, redundant NAS (Network Accessible Storage) system. I'm looking to use the freeNAS system:
http://www.freenas.org/features/feature-overview/category/featuresWikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FreeNASWhat makes this nice...is using the ZFS filesystem, which allows you to add different sized / speed drives over time...and can be hot swappable....and can lose 2 (or more depending on set up I believe) drives at the same time in the system, and still not lose data.
I just bought a special at newegg the other day, a barebones computer I'm about to assemble for about $168...8GB ram (which I'll likely upgrade to 16 for about $50 or so)...
Anyway, set that up with a 5 disk enclosure I bought awhile back to start with, and build it from there. In the future to have the comfort of redundancy
offiste , in case of fire, flood, hurricane (I live in NOLA after all), I'm going to set up a similar system at my mom's house out of state...and that way, I can justify paying for her internet connectivity since it will be a 'business expense'.
Anyway, I'm getting off topic...but if you don't mind a little DIY spirit....take a look at the links and systems I've listed above. It is very high quality stuff, and can be turned into a highly reliable, flexible system that most any computer you own can connect to and backup, whether it be a Windows PC, or Linux box...or even OSX on a mac with time machine, which can often be finicky at times on its own right.
HTH,
cayenne