What back up device should I get

[GColdtimer]

Very nervous that nothing on my laptop is backed up. Would like to back up my email and my files so don't need anything huge or expensive, any recommendations?

Back up onto dvd maybe - does laptop have dvd writer?

I have a small mobile drive for back up. Very easy to use. Cost about £50. Got it from PC world I think.

TBH you can get large hard drives for under £50 nowadays - depends what you term expensive..

I have a 120GB external hard drive that I got off ebay, it is always attached to my pc via a USB, but can easily go to any other usb port.

Oh, it cost about £45

agree.. 250-500GB USB2 HDD will cost around £50 and is the best backup option

Sounds good, USB external hard drive it is then.

Thanks

When you get an external USB hard drive the only problem with that is that you need to remember to plug it in and run the back up. The next step up from this is network attached storage, which is not as expensive as you might think. Something like this NSLU2 can connect your hard drive permanently to your network (as long as you have a router) so you never have to plug it in, allowing you to automatically run backup software, or just routinely copy files over without ever needing to physically do anything. It effectively creates something similar to your network server at work. It's worth thinking about as we never back up data as often as we should. I have one of these and it pulls off my important files every night while I am asleep (you just need to make sure the computer is on when the backups are set to run)