What would you recommend for backing up files?

[tankfreak]

I've decided to take action and attempt to back up files on my hard drives.

I recently read an article saying that if youve never had a cumputer crash and lose all your files you will someday.

I have many movie, tv show, music, and picture files on my hard drives that I would never want to lose. I have owned various computers for ~10 years and never once backed up my files.

How would you suggest I do this?

Whats the easiest, cheapest or safest method?

I heard about some site online where you can store your files, as back up, for a fee. Would you recommend this?

[glc]

What operating system? How many gigabytes of files? Do you have USB 2.0 or just 1.1 - some computer specs would help us make a recommendation.

[tankfreak]

sorry i have about 100gigs of stuff. Windows XP. I have a dell 8300.

thanks

[glc]

Moved from Win9x/ME forum to Gen Software.

That's a modern machine and has USB 2.0 - this helps. For that much data, I'd recommend an external hard drive. Here is my favorite:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16817155601

This is just the housing. Add a standard IDE hard drive, capacity to suit - I'd probably put a 250gb or larger drive in it. It comes with excellent drive imaging software. The housing is high quality, made from aluminum, and it has an internal fan. You can use the software to create a compressed image of an entire hard drive or selected partitions, and/or manually copy files to it. It should also be compatible with 3rd party backup software if you have another package that you prefer.

You can use this housing with multiple IDE hard drives - swapping them in and out is an easy process involving 4 screws and 2 connectors.