Suggestions For Reeldisk, my hard drive went. I need some info Options

[puuukeey]

Hi, I run a semi proffesional studio (estatesound.com) on a protools HD system. G5 2Ghz with 1 Gig of ram. heres the timeline of the last week:

•1 week ago: a local-compu-genius type asked me why I had bought a SATA 250GB maxtor drive. I shrugged. he said it would go within a week.
•5 days ago: I get messages from PT telling me the drive couldn't pull audio fast enough. I burnt everything important.
•today: PT crashed. refused force quit. restarted drive is doesn't show up!

so I'll try and troubleshoot but I think its obvious that its gone. can anyone give me some insight (cost, effort, reliability)into the following and choosing between them:

•hard drive brands,sizes,etc...
•single HD vs raid array. (do I really need to do it? is it a form of back up? which level. which controller?)
•server based backup. (how quickly can it backup? how do I set it up? is it worth the trouble?)
•WC-BUS [Wax Cylinder Back-Up-System] (is it dated? where does one get the needles?)

I own a tape drive but honestly I'm just not disciplined enough to use it effectively and the tapes are tiny compared to the amount of data I generate. What I do now is just burn sessions when done (if they're quick). then, biweekly, I burn anything unburnt and reformat.

thanks for your time
-matt