I think most of us have the presence of mind to realize that it would be a shame, if not a disaster, to lose some or all of the video we have stored on our computers' hard disks.  So, we need some kind of backup.  Here are the options:

1. Copy the files to CD/DVD.  There are many problems with this solution, including:
   • CD's/DVD's are a hassle to create, a hassle to label, and a hassel to store and organize.  They are such a hassle, in fact, that most of us who even consider this strategy don't wind up using it.
   • CD's/DVD's don't last forever, and research shows that the ones we make on our computers may not last nearly as long as we thought they would. You have to start thinking of this kind of media as a way of moving files from one machine to another, or for making a copy for a friend, but not as an archive/backup medium.
2. Buy a USB hard disk, and use a backup program to keep track of changes to files/folders that you want backed up.  This isn't a bad idea, and I use it myself.  In fact, I have a networked, 1 terabyte Western Digital My Book World Edition, with WD Anywhere Backup software, that provides automatic backup for all the computers in my house.  If the backup drive fails, I have the original still on my hard disk, and I buy a new backup drive.  If the original is lost or corrupted, I have the backup.  The remaining issue is what if I lose both -- e.g., what if the house burns down? Many home users would consider the loss of their precious videos to be the least of their problems if their house burns down.  However...
3. Most people/businesses who have data that is simply too valuable to lose incorporate an offsite backup solution.  That is, the backup is stored in a separate building/location from the original.  For home users, there are new services that I have been watching, commenting on, and using for a long time that do the equivalent of what my Western Digital System does -- automated backup that occurs in the background -- but does it over the network.  The most popular of these services is:
   • Mozy Unlimited Backup

     For $4.95 a month, you can back up as many files as you wish.  You get a desktop client that lets you choose which files/folders you want backed up, and the user interface is pretty easy to use.  Set it once, and forget it. After that, backups happen in the background.  One virtue of this service is that you can order one or more DVD's containing your files, as a faster means of restoring your files than would otherwise occur over the network.  That is a distinct advantage for media files, which are quite large, as well as an advantage over competing network backup services.

4. Alert FlipInFocus member Dave P recently pointed me to a relatively new service, called ADrive.  This service, unlike Mozy, is completely manual.  Also unlike Mozy, it provides 50GB of storage for free.  If you sign up for the basic service, you are provided a web interface that allows you to drag and drop files or entire folders to a form field, and have those files uploaded.  As you probably know, upload speeds are much slower than download speeds, but I was able to upload about a gigabyte to the service in just over an hour. Download should be quite a bit faster.

   Another virtue of this service is that you can use it to share files, in addition to just backing them up.  That is, you can allow your files to be privately or publicly accessible from any networked computer.

Perhaps the wisest course is redundancy.  That is, use something like Western Digital's solution to provide local, automated backup, in addition to a network service like Mozy or ADrive, so that you have another copy of your files offsite.  In combination, the time and effort expended will still be considerably less than manually backing up your files to DVD's, and considerably more secure.

I'm still waiting for flash memory (e.g., SDHC cards) to become cheap enough and ubiquitous enough to offer what I consider the ultimate solution.  The memory is relatively fast, you can run over it with a truck and it still works, and the form factor is such that you could store hundreds of SDHC cards in a small. fireproof box.