Thanks for the replies. I'm not interested in one of the front drive-type hd holders, as that doesn't offer enough protection -- it's more designed for quick swapping of HDs, if I understand it incorrectly. Nor am I interested in an external drive, as I've heard far too many horror stories (data loss, mostly).
I have considered dvd-ram, but the relatively high cost (~$200 for the drive) plus the small dvd-ram disk size (4.7GB) makes it somewhat impractical. Dvd-ram does, however, offer a critical advantage over other cd/dvd-based backup mediums: data verification. I believe that it does the data verification automatically, too.
I'm still leaning towards my original idea: HD-based backup. But possible data loss from magnetic fields and the like worry me. I remember reading an interesting story a couple of years ago in a computer security book. It was about a system administrator who did tape backups every night and promptly moved them off-site. When data loss actually occured on the servers, though, he found out that the tapes couldn't restore the data. It turned out that during the moves of the tapes to the off-site location, he had the tapes somewhere near the heater in his car. The heater produced a magnetic field that slowly destroyed the data. Thus, all of his off-site backups were useless. I don't want to ever find myself in this situation.
So, once again, does anyone know of a hd holder that offers anti-static and anti-magnetic field protection? I'm sure that they must exist. I just can't locate them. Any help would be appreciated.
Thanks,
Mike Gnitecki