Do you backup??

makes good sense! I can confidently delete unused files on my PC knowing that if I need them again, I can go to the backup later

I know what you're saying, but I am not good at remembering to backup, whereas the hard-disk software does it in the background. Maybe I should think about firewall software for the backup disk?? The cost of hard-drives are plummeting... in the UK, you can get an external 400GB (!!) drive for under £90, these things are usually cheaper in the 'States so I bet you can find one for around $100, which actually makes the cost favourably comparable with DVDR. I don't know if you have the same problem, but my laptop cannot actually dump any more than about 3.5GB onto a DVDR without having a major fit.

These things get cheaper all the time, give it 12 months and things will be probably about 30% of todays cost (unfortunately this only applies to electronics...)

That's pretty cheap. What I don't like though, is having a growing pile of DVD's gathering dust in the corner... My hard-drive option though expensive now, will not cost anything from day-to-day, and I don't have to remember to do it!

Hey Cuke Better late than never... USB drives up to around 500GB are available in the UK for around £100 now (that's $170 maybe...). I saw some ridculously cheap memory cards recently and spent about $18 on 2GB SDcard (I use it as laptop backup and with my camera) and then I bought 2 x 1GB pendrives 'cos they were only approx $8 each. My first 'Windows' PC had a hard drive with only 8GB on it....though I am old enough to remember computers before hard-drives...if I am being honest I have even used computers without floppy drives or screens!! If I were you, I would look for some shareware back-up software and backup onto a hefty pen drive... Oh and....Welcome to MyLot...if you approve me as a 'friend' I will 'speak' to you later

Oh, I replied to this, then my reply disappeared... (I didn't back it up!!) I assume you are talking about internal drives here? Sounds like a solid scheme you have running

Backup used to be a pain in the neck, but it's so easy with the external drive...It's a lot easier than manually writing DVD's, you don't even have to think about it. Sometimes it's not the loss of 'important' files that are annoying, but those simple little things you forget about.

I WAS going to do that, but now it is cheaper (here at least) to buy a complete external USB drive. The complete units are about the same costs as the intenal hard-drive, so to pay for the casing as well makes it more expensive. It is only a recent development in the last 3 or 4 months that the external drives have become so cheap. I bought an internal drive 200GB for a friend from ebay, it cost around UK£60, the cases cost maybe around UK£18 including power supply etc.. You can now buy a 400GB USB external drive complete with software and casing for less than UK£90...