Speaking of external hard drives, something I may have mentioned before but might be of interest here: On clearance, I picked up a semi-obscure product called the "Pogoplug." It's basically a tiny computer with an ethernet connection (wired) and three USB ports for external drives.
The part I'm not overly happy about is that, through the Pogoplug website (and hence a potential avenue for hackers, which is worrisome--and how do I know the company wouldn't do creepy things with my data?), I can log in and download/access any of the files. However, they also have software that "mounts" the three remote drives onto a more traditional computer, so I can access them normally from a desktop or netbook.
Handy little gadget, since I now keep all my drives off where I don't have to look at them, though probably not for anywhere near the retail price.