I can't stress enough how important it is to create and maintain regular backups of those files which are near and dear to your heart. It is easy to neglect doing this, and I will be the first to admit that I have been guilty of this in the past. But, when something does go wrong and you lose several thousand irreplaceable pictures or important e-mails, the only thing you can do is try to prevent it from happening again.
So how can you go about maintaining a constant backup of your data? Well that depends on just how many files you wish to save. If this is a low number, you could simply use a USB flash drive to store those important files on. A larger amount of data may require a DVD disc backup. DVD discs are great, except they can get scratched easily and it can be a hassle to remember backing files up every other day.
Enter the Western Digital 320GB USB/FireWire My Book, an external hard drive designed with the goal of easily creating backups of all of your important files. External hard drives are also great in the fact that they are very portable. For example, you could load the drive with your music collection and take it with you on a vacation or load it with vital e-mail files that you may need on a business trip. That is exactly what I did when we attended the 2007 CES in Las Vegas. I had to transfer all of my e-mail and sponsor contact information over to my laptop (over 2 GB worth). Having an external hard drive would have made this process much easier.
Anyway, let's take a quick look at the features and specifications for the My Book before we continue any further.
As you can see from the specs list, the 320 GB My Book can hold up to 91,000 pictures, 80,000 MP3s or up to 100 hours of DVD quality video. This should be more than enough for the average user. Continue ahead as we check out the package contents and get our first look at the My Book.
