Okay, firstly, otaku and good with computers are entirely unrelated to each other, so I have no idea what that's doing in there. Secondly, we're talking about a novel three years in the making. This is something that should be backed up in _at_least_ one of three manners: given to your lawyer, put in a safe deposit box, or stored online using a secure storage service of some form. I don't care how 1337 of a hacker you are, the last one is the only one remotely possible, and even then, in this day, it's pretty much only possible if you give him direct access to the account in the first place.

Who puts an unfinished manuscript in a safety deposit box or gives it to their lawyer? I don't care how long you've been working on it, unless you're worried about someone taking it, copyright infringement shit, why bother? And the only time you have to worry about that is if you're already a big name in writing or you don't stop bragging about how great your book will be. THat said, it is good to have backups in a lot of places. I have the regular copy on my computer, and I back up in two or three places most of the time. A Cd, my email, and a Flashdrive. The flashdrive only has my most important things, adn I carry it with me on my keychain.

Offsite backups (preferably in multiple) are a good idea. Period. For an (presumably not rich) individual, I listed your best options. *Most* people would go with secure online storage. Okay, actually most people are stupid and don't do offsite backups. But most individuals who do would go with secure online storage. But if you're not going to do that, safe deposit box or lawyer are the way to go, hands down. Note that I'm not saying to do this for everything. This is for the truly important things you can't stand to lose. Like a manuscript three years in the making.