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How can i backup my custom XBIAN settings in the event of a SD crash. I have tried XBMC backup but it does not appear to back up any of the Xbian System settings.

If you are on windows - you can use Win32diskimager to read your SD card to an "img" file onto your computer and use that in the event of a SD card failure or crash.

See SD card Backup

Thanks, will give it a try. I have in the past copied the sources.xml/Guisettings.xml and advanedsettings.xml but they did not hold any of the XBMC configuration data that I customized. ie, subtitles, audio, video settings, international settings, timezones etc etc.

best is to backup whole user data folder.
And addons if you want to want to backup them too.

So if I did a complete back up of the Userdata folder then a image would be unnecessary.

For ease of re-installation, an image is better but you would loose any updates that occurred since the last image.

Coping the /xbian/home directory only saves what has been made there, not any changes at a system level.

With btrfs on Beta 1.1 there are other options. Restoring to a particular snapshot etc. but they are useless if the SD card is unreadable.

However, for a fail safe option, a full copy of your SD card is, IMHO, the best option (but do it twice and try a restore first to prove it works)

I would also look at "Boot on USB" and "USB installations" topics on this Website as a USB installations seems to be more stable.