Today's PCs are overburdened with files, files, and more files. Whether digital photos, music, home videos, or downloaded videos, all these files take up a lot of space on your notebook's or desktop's hard drive. Digital photos typically run about 3MB to 5MB, as does each MP3 song on your hard drive (roughly 1MB per minute of music). When you get into videos, each file can run from hundreds of megabytes up to multiple gigabytes.
Today's budget laptops and desktops come with 160GB hard drives at a minimum, and capacities go up from there. I've seen massive multimedia systems with 750GB to 1 terabyte drives that are still in the affordable (sub-$1,000) price range. All of these internal drives fill up eventually, and you'll need a space to keep all of your stuff.
With apologies to the late George Carlin, your computer is now the place where you keep all your stuff, and sooner or later you'll need to find a place for more stuff. The Internet and all the files on it are growing, after all, not shrinking.
Don't leave businesspeople out of the equation. Small-business owners have important files on their hard drives as well. Invoices and QuickBooks databases are hard to recover or replace when your system goes down.
Recent notebook PCs will have a hard drive with a capacity from 4GB all the way up to 500GB (for now). What I propose is that you get a drive that will sit on your desk, backing up all the files on your notebook, and hold other files that don't need to be on your notebook 24/7. For this purpose, you'll need more than 320GB. Here are a few recent candidates for your backup solution. External desktop hard drives such as the Iomega eGO have reached terabyte capacity, and the WD My Book Mirror Edition does it one better, combining two 1TB drives, each backing up the other. A lot of vendors have increased the capacity of their pocket hard drives to 500GB; our favorite of these half-terabyte mini wonders is the Seagate FreeAgent Go, which although insanely portable also comes with a svelte, superbly designed dock. When placed in the dock, it can back up your PC around the clock.
Already made your New Year's resolutions? Add "backup" as one more item to the list.
Featured in this Roundup:
Iomega eGo Desktop Hard Drive (1TB) ($218.45 direct) 
The Iomega eGo is your basic large-capacity hard drive. It's pretty inexpensive ($140 to $170 street) and has a lot of space to hold all of your files. The eGo connects to your laptop via USB 2.0, and it works reasonably well as a backup drive. Its hip-flask-shaped chassis is reasonably attractive, and it's available in three colors: black, blue, and red.
Seagate FreeAgent Go (500GB) ($239.99 list) 
The FreeAgent is a 500GB portable drive that you can bring along on trips or when commuting, but its greatest strength is the innovative design of the unit and its dock. You can keep the combo on your desk; that way, it's always ready to be connected to your desktop or notebook PC. The 500GB capacity is enough to back up the largest notebook drives, and the Seagate comes with a class-leading five-year warranty.
Western Digital My Book Mirror Edition (2TB) ($399.99 list) 
The Western Digital My Book Mirror Edition is the ultimate USB drive for backups. Its twin internal 1TB drives back each other up (hence the "Mirror" in the name), so even if all hell breaks loose and you suffer multiple drive failures (your C: drive and one drive in the mirror), you're still safe. About the only way to become safer is to take the Mirror Edition and lock it in a fireproof safe every night. At this price, it's more of a business protector, but it could keep your irreplaceable family photos and home videos safe as well. (story Link)
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