Dan,
I have been looking into web storage, too, and I am about to sign up with Streamload Mediamax (
http://mediamax.streamload.com/). It gets good marks from users and reviewers, and the price is great. I also like being charged for what you download, not how much you store--if you have a disaster, you are happy to pay to retrieve everything. You can store an unlimited amount and pay a monthly or yearly price for X gigabytes of downloading per month and a higher total per year. You can use several months' worth in a single month if you need to as well. I am thinking about the premium plan, which allows 25 GB of downloads per month or 250 GB per year for $9.95 per month if paid annually. I think it was $99.95 per year if paid annually until very recently--they must have upped their prices. Grrrr....
As for the speed of uploading, it will take time, but I think it is worth it for the piece of mind. I will probably start with only recent working files, which are not on DVDs because they change daily--otherwise these files would not be stored offsite in any form. My archive files are put on DVDs that I keep at family members' houses or at my office (or both), in addition to an external drive at home and a Linux server at home.
Also, this week I am getting Verizon Fios internet service at home (Maryland), which will make uploading a much faster process--faster than T1. The package I am getting is 15 Mb/s downstream and 2 Mb/s upstream, and all of the user reports I have seen say that actual tested speeds (from online speed testing sites) are at or even slightly above the advertised speed 99% of the time. So it may be only 3-4 times faster than cable's advertised speed, but in practice it will probably be more like 5-6 times faster, especially during peak hours. That's fast. Of course, in Japan I hear they have had 100 Mb/s service for three years and are starting to roll out gigabit service. The US is a tad bigger.
Once I have tried out Streamload, I will post my thoughts about the service here. Online backup (and storage generally) is the wave of the future, if the infrastructure can just keep up. Laying fiber optic cable is inevitable but slow and costly.
Stephen
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