[shogunmike]

I had a similar setup to pierrefar, with each chapter a separate LaTeX file. However the whole project was in a Subversion repository. All of my papers, figures and other binaries were included in there too.

I'm not going to pretend I know much about the implications of storing huge binary files in SVN, but at least they were in VC.

The main benefit to me of this was not backup (although that was highly useful!) but in the fact that I could write it up in the Uni office, at home or on my laptop on holiday. Just don't forget to SVN commit every now and then :-)