I'm running into an issue now that I had not anticipated when it comes to using the 7D. The files are freakin' enormous. Raw format at the full 18 million pixels are weighing in on average around 24 to 26 MB each.
The second hard drive in my Mac Pro, which is used almost exclusively for photos and video, is nearly full. The external bus-powered USB drive I decided to use for video, at 100 gb, is already full from stuff I've generated out of the 7D.
My online backup is now weighing in around 130 gigs, and costing about $23 a month. It's growing really fast all of a sudden because of the big photos. I don't actually backup any original video material to the Internet, only locally on my Time Machine drive.
I really don't care much for buying hard drives, but it looks like I'll need to do that soon. I noticed an external drive at Costco, a terabyte and a half, for around a hundred bucks, but it's not bus-powered. I like those because you don't need to lug around a power supply, which is super handy when you take it with you.
I have two suggestions for you.
1. Drobo http://www.drobo.com/
I don't have one to rave about how good they are (yet), but that should help ease the growing pains...
2. Backblaze http://www.backblaze.com/
I can vouch for this serves. For $50 a year with unlimited space, you can't beat it.
I read that Engaget really likes the video on the 7D. Do you think it is close to really replacing maine stream video cameras?
I'm a Nikon guy personally, but Canon in light years ahead in the video arena. I'm still starting my lens selection, so I could go either way...
I have a friend who went through Drobo hell, said it was like being a beta tester. Eventually returned it.
The 7D will not replace video cameras. Not yet. People aren't going to pay $1,600 without a lens when they can buy a $200 flip camera or something. Most people don't get the quality difference.
I'm the guy that had the Drobo. If you check their forums, I'm not the only person that has had problems. The funny thing is you can't get into their forums until after you buy one to get a serial number. haha. (drobospace.com, serial numbers look like TDC08432#### in case you're wanting to check)
I thought about doing the online thing but I gave up on that after Backblaze told me the backup would be done in 3 months. That's not cool.
The solution I wound up with is to mirror my data drive to the drives I wound up pulling out of the Drobo after I returned it. Since I had two drives in the Drobo I now have two full backups. I have one at home and one at work and rotate them weekly. Once the full backup (I just used rsync in my case) is done, the weekly syncs only take a few minutes.
My primary data drive is a FW800 external I built with a 2TB drive in it. Plenty fast for me. I do have an external 320GB w/o a power brick for on-the-road use if I really need it. Moreover, when I'm on the road I just copy pics off the card and don't erase the card -- now I have the pics on two different media, instant backup! I carry enough compact flash to hold everything I'm going shooting. 64GB is enough for me for now.
To deal with the power brick problem for the backups I got a USB -> SATA drive dock. I just keep the drives in the anti-static bags when carrying them around. Nice and small too.
-G