My MacBook’s hard drive just died :-( Any suggestions?

The unthinkable has happened: my MacBook’s hard drive gave up and croaked. This means lost data, unrecoverable memories, and tears of pain. It’s been less than 30 days since I purchased the Macbook, so at least Apple is replacing the drive. But until it gets fixed, updates from me might be sporadic for the next few days. The lesson? Beware of refurbished MacBooks from Apple or anyone else.

It’s the third time this year I’ve had a hard drive failure. Earlier, both my PowerBook drive AND my external backup failed. Having lost gigs of data, I’m now looking for a backup process that doesn’t depend solely on having an external drive.

Apple’s upcoming Time Machine, looks interesting, since it can backup to a networked drive. Sadly, it won’t be out until next year. I’m also considering Box.net as a backup solution, but is it worth a 100 bucks?

What automated, redundant, and reliable backup solutions have you tried? I’d love to know!