Online data storage/backup recommendations?

I want to backup the contents of my aging laptop. I am thinking that one of these online backup/storage sites might be the best way to go rather than CD's or an external hard drive which are likely to be destroyed/stolen at the same time my laptop is.

Do any of you folks use these? If so do you have any recommendations/criticisms/advice?

I tried carbonite but it was so friggin slow. Once I moved to a mac I just got an external drive and used 'time machine'

I don't trust online storage sites. I've seen enough of the photo viewing sites that went under, taking people's pictures along with them.

External hard drive is your best option. Get two. You can get a 1 TB hard drive for $99 to $120 from places like Fry's Electronics. I have four externals, two of which are waiting for a new computer.

Howard

I use external harddrives and Windows Live One Solution to manage automatic backups.  I recently lost a computer to a power spike and was able to recover and install all of my backed up files and data to a new machine quickly and easily.  My external drives are attached to my network and back up all of our machines.  I use Cisco's Network Magic to manage the network and all of the attached devices.  It's a great piece of software and not very expensive.

USB flash drives are more reliable than hard drives or optical media, plus they're small and cheap. 

I agree with the thumb drive / external drive advocates.

But with data I'm a belt and suspenders kind of guy. So in addition to those, I use the free product at Mozy.com (Mozy home). So far so good. It backs up when I forget to, so I feel like I'm always covered.

Ben

Along the lines of external backup solutions, the Maxtor One Touch:http://www.maxtor.com/en/external-drives/external-hard-drive/ is a good way to go.  The software that comes with it has all the options most people need.  They include things like revisions of documents, automatic syncing, and full backups of systems.  I've set it up for many people like my Father and SOHO users, and never had a complaint.

Personally, I have too much space for any flash sort of device.  But instead, I use an IronKey for important documents that I keep on my person including sensitive materials, passwords, and account data:  https://www.ironkey.com/ It's fully tamper proof, so even if you lost it, no one will retrieve that data.

Another external drive option is the Iomega Networked External drive, which is nice if you want to use many computers with it, since its easily networked: http://go.iomega.com/en-us/products/network-storage-desktop/home-network/?partner=4760

As far as online storage goes, don't know when it will be released, but Google was going to do a sort of network mountable drive with their service for free.  However last I heard it got derailed due to fears of copyright infringement.  I did read a blurb that it might be put back on the table soon.