In reply to Nick Smith - UKC:
>I'm amazed that anyone would trust an online company to store all their most personal data.
I think that in a lot of cases just having an off site backup is good enough.
If you have a RAID device, a removable HD and backups to DVD, but your house burns down or you are burgled then it does you no good. An off site backup will guard against that. If the company goes bust after a year or two, but you are aware of that, then you can move the data somewhere else as you still have the original data. Treat it like an insurance policy and hope you never have to use it.
For small amounts of data you could rent webspace but just use the space for data storage and not a web site. Its not the ideal solution for sensitive data, but for your family photos it may be ok especially if the hosting company back up that data as as well.
The data security issue is also an interesting one. You can encrypt it all, but then you need to keep your keys in multiple, off site places.
I don't know if this still works, but if it does, it may provide an interesting alternative to formal off site back ups.
http://www.viksoe.dk/code/gmail.htm