Why bother when you can do it with Linux?

A Windows Home Server? It doesn't use RAID, as that's a bit restricting.
Instead, it still duplicates files across 2 drives, but allows you to
have a random collection of all sorts of drives attached to the server.
What's more, it'll do your PC backups for you as well.

They're not expensive - you can even build your own from an old PC and
some disk drives.

http://www.microsoft.com/windows/products/winfamily/windowshomeserver/default.mspx
http://blogs.technet.com/homeserver/

Another alternative is the various on-line storage solutions available -
if you trust them never to lose your data.

Definitely.

But hopefully, affordable network storage devices with RAID, suitable for
ordinary mortals, will be along fairly soon. Anyone got any recommendations?

Don't rely on a hard drive as your only backup they do fail as do DVDs and
CDs.
Multiple backups onto various media seems to be reasonable idea.

John.

Hello Daniele.

I've inherited boxes of family photos. I plan to scan them onto my PC so
that I can preserve them in their original form on a hard drive. I can then
print them onto pages as needed.

Use a search engine to find archival quality photo storage. "Acid free" is
also a term that you could use.

The fading could be due to ageing or poor storage. Some makes of photo pager
aged quite badly.

Best wishes,
Rog.

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I have a large number of family photographs - a large carton full of
prints, slides and negatives - that I need to go through, sort out, and
organise into some form of appropriate permanent storage.

Some just need to be safely archived, others will go into albums.

What can I buy that will be good for archiving them well, that will keep
them flat?

Some of the colour prints from the 1970s are quite faded. Is this just
old age, or perhaps poor storage?

Daniele