I have a lot of stuff on my laptop, but I would say most of it is in my 'cloud'.....ie being stored up in the intangible world of the internet....all my important documents are with Google via Gmail.....all my important photos are with flickr, and I do all my financial dealings online too. I could drop my laptop into the sea and still be able to access everything I need as long as I could get to the web. And it costs nothing and is all super secure. Well, Flickr costs about 12 quid a year, which is nothing.
Sorry to hear you lost all those precious pics though Ducky, that happened to my bro last year, he's an IT guy too and couldn't get them back. DOn't be too hard on your self, we've all done it!