Don't be an idiot!

[cd34]

While I personally don't like Maxtor/Quantum, having a backup -- even on a cheap drive that isn't spinning 95% of the time is still better than taking a risk and not having a backup.

If you do a backup through an external drive, whether USB, Firewire or whatever and then unplug it and leave it in a file cabinet until your next backup, you still have a much better chance at recovering that data should there be an issue.