Series of gimmie questions for you guys: (I'm assuming an external h.d.d. would be attached to my computer via USB - I think it's 2.0, but could be 1.1)

1.) Let's say I back up all my .mp3's from my c drive to an external drive. I burn all my .mp3's on dvd and then delete all of them off my c hard drive (I need space). So all my .mp3 files were on C, and nothing else. Now they are on DVD's and my external (if I buy one) h.d.d., but no songs on my C drive.

Can I run winamp and have the songs (about 10,000) play on shuffle or continuous...flawlessly (no long delay or anything) like I used to from my C drive, but this time from my external h.d.d.?

2.) If my external h.d.d. is on, can't it be exposed to viruses/trojan horses/etc. just as my interal drives are?

3.) For those of you who use an external backup, how long would it be to back up 50 megs (say using 1.1 usb speed)?

4.) Do you only backup when you have something worth saving...like pictures, personal things, songs...? or do you backup everything?

5.) How often do you (should you) backup your files? Every night? Or, as in the aforementioned question, just when you have something worth saving?

Thanks ahead of time.

the answer to your first question is yes it will work no prob - I have winamp installed on my pen drive and play mp3's from a cd without any problem using 1.1

the answer to your second question is also yes it is vunerable obviously a dvd is less so - you could set your external drie to read only which would protect it - your AV software will also extend to your ext HDD

50 megs would only take a couple of minutes this is only one twelfth of a cd

I do a full backup using windows FAST every 6 weeks (when I'm on holiday) but I back up my important work files once a week

You can get PCI cards that give you USB 2 which are very good

Thanks for the reply!

I'm a little confused now then. Are there people out there who get an external h.d.d. for backup if it's still vulnerable to viruses/trojans...etc?

I guess for those who turn it on for 30 seconds, back stuff up, then turn it back off - it would make more sense for them as opposed to people like me who would just have an external h.d.d. on all the time and streaming .mp3's and photo's.

I understand the portability of an external and it can't get infected if it's off (or I guess on standby)...but in my situation where it would always be on and I wouldn't be physically moving it...an external would provide no more support or safety than just buying another internal?

nope. but you can swap it back and forth.

people backup incase one drive goes down, their baby photos still exist on the backup drive. The safety is in redundancy, not immunity.

Thanks guys.