Secure backups of PhD and journal-research

Common sense dictates that any and all work/research/drafts/etc that we do in our journal-research and PhD ought to be backed up and backed up again. Most of the time, this is constrained to laptop/desktop, USB memory and perhaps a copy in your own email - one disaster could wipe all that out (almost happened to my MSc research - got caught up in a severe natural disaster).

My question is, is there a more secure and 'safe' means to save/backup our PhD and/or journal-research work? Do universities offer such services, or is it up to individual researchers to find their own solutions?

I should note that I have no illusions of any system being completely 100% safe and secure, but are looking at ways that are more secure than the 'traditional' methods listed before in the first paragraph (2nd sentence) of this question.

Answer

Backups, short-term and long-term storage of research material is actually something we have to address whenever we apply for a IRB for a research study or an IRB exemption. We have to spell everything out in great detail including when we are going to destroy or get rid of the acquired research materials (since they usually contain personal identifiers like name, address, email etc.)

This is our approach:

1. 
   
   

   We have our own encrypted lab server on a RAID configuration. Access to the server is restricted to myself and my adviser.

   
   


2. 
   

   We store generalized, public versions of our scripts on github. The previous answer has very good specifics on github so I will not go into the details here.

   
   


3. 
   

   Periodically, we backup our lab server to another externally hosted server (not physically located in the US). This backup script is encrypted and password protected.

   
   


4. 
   

   Physical interview questionnaires, survey instruments, interview transcripts are stored in a locked file cabinet with access to my adviser and myself in our lab. Entry to our lab is through keycard only.

   
   
   


5. 
   

   Interview recordings, videos and audios are also stored and backed-up according to the procedures in 1 and [3].

   
   

This approach seems to have worked so far.