How do you backing up data from a laptop computer?

[PotMouth]

I currently have a laptop with a 10 gig hard drive and need to back up my drive once a week. Can anyone help as to how best to do this. I first thought about getting a second hard drive to back up my primary hard drive but do not have additional slots for an additional hard drive. Burning to CDs seems too cumberson trying to back up 10 gigs everyweek. I thought about tape drives, but can that be done with laptops? Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated...

 

[gsaldivar]

The key concept here is called "incremental backups". The first backup will be 10GB (assuming your entire 10GB hard drive is filled with data), however, subsequent backups will be significantly smaller because only changed files are written to the backup medium.

With this concept in mind, Tape, CDR, Zip, Jaz, etc. etc. won't seem as cumbersome a backup medium as you may have previously thought...

Good luck!

 

[VBboy]

Are you sure you want to backup ALL of the 10 GB?! Even Windows, Program Files, the Swap file, temporary files, Internet Explorer cache and History?

You should really only backup your personal files such as projects, documents, poems, and pornographic images Get an regular external USB 250 MB zip drive (very cheap), and dump your important stuff there. If the HD crashes, so what - just reinstall the OS and programs. Much easier than backing it all up (do you have any idea how long a backup - even an incremental one - will take?)