Another thing I don't like about hard disks is that they are made to stay connected to the computer. That's not safe enough for me when used for my backups due to the possibility of viruses and electrical surges. Here's a pro-tape drive article, and here are some of the tape drives I'll be considering for my little business venture. If it doesn't work out, they'll still be suitable for personal backups. Typical tape drives that home users use are cheaper, but I've heard too many stories of corrupted data.