[iceman (Mike)]

Ok, so after going through the scary stuff of almost losing my life's work, I've got approval from the minister of finance to purchase some backup hardware.

I've got a 300gig external USB2 drive that I store everything on, so as a minimum, I'll need another 300gig drive.

On one hand, I could get a normal 300gig drive and mount it inside my home computer. Would probably write a bit faster.

On the other hand, if I get another external one then I can take it with me if required, during an emergency, fire, etc.

My computer has 2 USB2 ports, so backing up from to the other would just go through the USB ports. I imagine it would be a bit slower than normal because of traffic on the bus, but a backup is a backup. It doesn't have to be lightning quick.

Any other points of view?

So the next question is, what software do I need/should I use?

What will backup software give me, that a normal windows explorer copy/paste can't?

Any advice on software or other solutions?

Thanks in advance.