I had a HD crash 2-3 years ago and lost all of my pics, but I had already burned over 90% of them on CD's.
I back that up by printing snap shots (either commercially or on my photo printer) and filling photo albums, so in one sense I really didn't lose anything, but I did lose everything else I had saved. But the photos were the most important thing.
Photographs do indeed speak a thousand words and are wonderful to look back on as a history of your life.
Since I came back to motorcycles in 1992 I've filled 17 photo albums, but these also include family trips abroad as well as my motorcycling adventures at home and elsewhere.
That's almost one per year. Oh dear, LOL!!!
These days I'm also into animated slide shows with music on DVD's so now I can really bore my friends and relatives half to death, LOL!!!!