backup advice sought

[dep]

morning, gang!

i'm beginning a couple of fairly big projects and i've also had hardware 
go south on me in recent weeks -- first, when the power supply blew up 
first of the year; last week, when *two* 512-meg sdram simms failed 
(under warranty, fortunately) -- and i now must realize that while 
neither of these failures has cost me data, there are hardware failures 
that could. and i simply cannot afford to have my stuff at the mercy of 
a hard drive that might decide to blow up any old time.

used to be, we all had nice little consumer-level tape drives and would 
back up from time to time -- i still have colorado t-1000 tapes full of 
OS/2 stuff. but since going to linux, which is both reliable and which 
last time i looked offered backup chiefly to tape drives that cost the 
price of a used car, i've fallen way short. i *must* remedy this.

and i don't know where to begin. ideally, i'd back up daily to another 
drive with an independent power supply -- or something like that. if 
there are tape drives or similar that are not insanely expensive and 
that have a decent capacity, that would be good to know. i do not want 
to spend a thousand bucks here, but i also would be well and truly 
screwed -- i mean lawyer-grade screwed -- if i lost my stuff.

advice? ideas? things to avoid? 

thanks.
-- 
dep

Hippocratic oath: An ethical construct whose initial tenet, "first, do 
no harm," prohibits doctors from treating lawyers.