You've been luckier than me - I've averaged a laptop drive failure every 3-4 years. My 3rd such crash happened last year, and backups have saved my bacon, losing only a few hours worth of work.  I bought a new disk drive, put it in the laptop, and restored - crossing my fingers - and it came back up just like it had a week or so before.  I had to go online to retrieve the latest versions of a few key files, and new folders I'd created, but all told it was only several hours of work.

In addition to a local 'bare metal' backup of everything on the disk (I use Acronis to run a full backup most weekend), I also recommend an online plan as well. I used to use a commercial grade service, which was a little pricey, but now use and recommend Mozy, which I've been using to do encrypted online backups for a couple years, and which runs about $50 annually.

The 'swap DVDs' method (or take them to a safe deposit box) are fine - but I've got about 100GB (lot of it is photos from my line of work) protected online, and updated every night, rather than every week or two - with no need to leave the house.