While I’m not that concerned about offsite backup for my Window Home Server. The problem has been dealt with in detail by a few fellow beta testers.
Check out a detailed look at the problem here and a further look at setting up IDrive-E with WHS ( the chosen solution) here.
Now, it seems pretty clear that an offsite back-up solution is a gaping hole in Windows Home Server. This is the case for one of two reasons. Either Microsoft deliberately decided that it was not going to bother ( possible, but unlikely in my view). or Microsoft has something up its sleeves ( if not for this first release of WHS, then then for the next one).
Now entirely by coincidence (sarcasm intended), Microsoft announced a limited private beta of its Live Folders service.
At the moment its limited to 500Mb of storage.
What if Microsoft integrates the two services together (Live Folders +WHS)? I mean, think of it.
- Your OS files don’t need to be uploaded since Microsoft already has the original files (Since you are using a Microsoft OS). Only the Changes need to be backed up.
- Microsoft products like Visual Studio, Office and Flight Simulator ( all three are the largest installed programs on my PC) don’t need to go since Microsoft already has the original files
- This leaves us with your personal files. Once all your stuff is up, only changes need to be moved, making it much faster.
Once 20 Million households (the current MS estimate for the WHS market) all upload their data, Microsoft can literally organize the worlds data far more conveniently than Google.
Not that I’m being alarmist, but its a scary thought.
I can see Google coming out with a similar app, but in the form of a Universal Binary to reach a cross-platform audience (case in point – a friend of mine mistakenly reformatted a UNIX drive. WHS could not have been used to recover lost data. Any suggestions on recovering the data on the drive?).
In closing, Mary Jo Foley says, ominously:
Software+Services (S+S) is Microsoft’s alternative to software-as-a-service (SaaS). Unlike Google, Salesforce.com and other pure-play Web 2.0 companies, Microsoft is making sure that there’s both a services and a software component to all of its products, going forward. That’s the crux of S+S.
Random Musings 
I think I’ll use the “Send a copy of everything to grandma’s house” method of backing up my WHS that some people in the forums have discussed. Only it’ll be my in-laws instead of grandma’s house. One USB hard drive in the safe at my house, one in the safe at the in-laws’ house. Swap ’em out when we visit them or they visit us, which generally works out to about once a month or so. Not a perfect solution, but it’s better than totally relying on Drive Extender and duplication in case a fire or flood destroys the house.