I don't like the idea of backing up to email accounts like gmail. Google is moving in a direction that would suggest that your data may not be protected against privacy issues.

If you want to use a online back-up service for serious data that you want need to be snoop free...I would suggest EVAULT, Seagate's newest company. Everything is encrypted and can not be read or accessed by employees or ANYONE but you!

As for normal back-ups...dvd's, jump drives or a second hard drive in raid will work very well. Most all machines today have room inside for a second drive. If no room inside, you can get a Seagate 500gb hard drive for around 100.00 that will plug into a USB port and off you go. Back-ups will be solved for a LONG TIME.

If you keep your OS in a partition you could back it up to a Rubber Coated Flash Drive (very safe)

Yes, those rubber coated Flash Drives are small, safe and cheap...with some serious room on them. You can also hide them away quite easily, without too much trouble.

For a few dollars more than a basic unit, you can get one with a fingerprint reader on it so only you can open it or ones with 128bit encryption.

Originally Posted by kokotai

Is it a good idea to backup with an online company? I know they claim that it is good because they are storing "off-site" and all but I am skiddish.

I am agree with this suggestion,

I have an external drive that I use to store all my files. The only thing I keep on my internal drive is my OS and my software. I figure if my internal drive dies all I have to is reinstall the OS and my software. Besides I reformat about every 3 months so its not that big a deal. I guess people could say what happens when your external drive dies. Well I guess I have just been lucky. BTW 64 bitman I know I have some somewhere in all my junk I think I might have it in my storage space I will go there in the next few days and see if its there. If it is I will post pics.

The most cost effective solution is to purchase a 250GB USB2 external drive for well under $100 us, and setup your PC with a backup schedule using Windows built in NTBACKUP utility. Customize a backup job to include all your critical data (My docs, favorites, etc), to backup to your external hard drive. For added protection, make a monthly DVD backup of the .BKF file created from the NTBACKUP utility on your external drive.

simple .. easy ... cheap ... effective! ;-)

to launch ntbackup, start | run | type 'ntbackup' then enter.
If you are using XP home, you may not have it installed.
Get it free from here: http://www.computerconscript.com/ntbackup.msi

I have to agree with Annabell, i use Acronis True Image v11 and i back up my whole system to a [FONT='Verdana','sans-serif']500GB USB2.0 External Hard Drive, safe in knowing i can do a complete reinstall if i ever need to [/font]