Yep, jan, it's basically an enormous thumb drive.

Can I get one shaped like an enormous thumb? With the USB key where the nail is?

probably

DON'T DO IT! I got one and it died and took all my photos and music with it. If you must do it, research it very carefully, DO NOT buy one by Simpletech, and, so I have heard after it was too late, add data to it slooooooowly; give it weeks of time to get used to the idea of storing data. I dragged everything on over, rejoiced in all my new free space, and kablam, that was that, it ate everything. Oh and also? Do not decide that screeching noises coming from your speakers are not a problem. :-(

You could just get a regular harddrive and a usb hd enclosure. That's what I do. Of course, I swap drives a lot. Comes in handy.

mygothlaundry, I think (I hope) essexjan wants to back up her data, not move it all over there. Just moving it kind of defeats the purpose of having a backup.

If you're buying something anyway, many plug & play USB mass storage devices also play music, and some of 'em can be carried around and used to offload pictures--say, mid-vacation or whatnot.

Yeah, it's just to back it up, not move it completely. I also store precious photos in at least two online locations as well as on CD.

You could just get a regular harddrive and a usb hd enclosure. That's what I do. Of course, I swap drives a lot. Comes in handy.

The fact that I have absolutely no idea what this means suggests that I am best off with a plug and play doo-dah.

I suggest a domestic array of sherpas.

The fact that I have absolutely no idea what this means suggests that I am best off with a plug and play doo-dah.
It's exactly the same thing, except you are buying yours already assembled.

I just bought one of these (the dissasembled type) and have been madly backing up everything for the first time, which is totally shameful of me with almost all our baby photos and lots of other non-replaceable stuff on my HDD.