Love the subject!
I must say though, with reference to an external hard drive, get another to go with your current one and also copy to CD or DVD! I know this sounds over the top, however, I work in IT and I have seen many a hard drive crash and die for no reason!
In fact, just the other month, I went out and bought a Western Digital external hard drive and
copied all of my pictures to it. I then put in in a safe, dustless place until I next needed it. Two months later, I plugged it in and 'lo and behold...the beggar did not work! @ all! I took it back from whence it came, but they said they had to send it to Western Digital, not being able to get it going themselves. Turns out it was completely dead! Luckliy, I had not deleted the pictures on my laptop! So, I have replaced the original external drive with a passport size external drive. It is BRILLIANT and very easy to carry around. I am saving for a second to keep in the back of a drawer upstairs as back up to this drive and my laptop! Believe me...after so long in IT I have seen many, MANY drives die for no apparent reason.
Finally, copy everything to CD or DVD. If you then tuck them away, you are guarenteed safe back ups! However, I have found th@ CD's lose their 'integrity' after about three years, even if only stored with images or music on them, so redo them after a few years!
Yes, I know this all sounds very extreme, but the day you lose your pictures, you'll be kicking yourself, big time!
Final word...the guys who sold me the hard drives told me they may be able to retrieve the data on the original, external hard drive, but @ £5 for every 5MB!!!!!!! OUTRAGEOUS!!!!!! So, back it up, guyz and galz! J
