[Etcetera]

Recently, my Creative Zen Vision: M failed on me. I had it for about 2 and a half years, no problems, and it just wouldn't rebuild the whole way no matter what I did. So I was forced to wipe it clean and delete all the 2400 songs that I had on it. Now, I didn't have enough space on my computer to keep backup files of all the songs. They existed only on the Zen itself. Stupid, I know, don't need a lecture on that lol. Anyway, ever since then, I've had to try to remember and find the songs again through various methods (YouTube, Frostwire, old CDs, etc)...and its a real annoyance.

What this boils down to is, I want to have some sort of method of being able to have copies of my files that is reliable and simple. For all my writings and my pictures, I use two flash drives that are extremely simple. All I do is plug them into the USB port, go to My Computer, double-click the flash drive itself, and it pops up as a window filled with all my stuff. Just a simple series of folders and files, similar to if you just opened up My Documents.

But I don't have enough room on those flash drives, obviously, to take into account 30 gigs of music or whatever, and I don't want to buy 20 flash drives and spend 400 bucks or anything lol. So I was trying to figure out a good way of keeping backup files. I'm hesitant to buy an external hard drive because I don't need it to actually act as a hard drive itself - (ie, I don't need to install and run programs on it) - and it seems like most external hard drives are meant for that purpose. It also seems like a lot of EHDs are made for people that hook it up 24/7 for the space. On top of that, I keep seeing all these reviews for them that say that once you plug it in, they automatically re-sync every file from the hard drive BACK on the computer again. I wouldn't want that. If I wanted all the music to be on my computer and a backup, I'd just have them on the computer and the mp3 player, you know?

Ideally, I'd like to get something with a lot of storage capacity (100gb would be more than enough for me as I'm not running a business or anything) that isn't pricey and just acts like a simple flash drive. No need for installing weird programs to run. I don't want to have to keep re-syncing things back onto my computer because the music itself I'd like to just throw on a separate drive and delete off my computer itself and keep it that way - unless of course, I wanted to simply transfer it over.

Sorry for how long this is, but I just wanted to be clear that I'm not interested in buying some hard drive that I need to have plugged into my computer 24/7 - nor do I want to have some hard drive that forces me to put stuff back onto my computer (or vice versa, doesn't allow me to keep a copy if I so chose to) - nor do I want to just buy a buttload of CD-Rs or Lexar JumpDrives lol.

Any suggestions? I'd really appreciate it.

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Honestly, the best long term backups would be on DVDs. There are no electronics to fail, which is important. You should really have multiple copies too since there can be issues reading them. A friend gets DVDs from different makers.

[Kemasa]

Honestly, the best long term backups would be on DVDs. There are no electronics to fail, which is important. You should really have multiple copies too since there can be issues reading them. A friend gets DVDs from different makers.

[wannabe1]

Hello Etcetera...

External Hard Drives would serve you well in this application. If you want to stay with a flash drive, Corsair offers a couple of 32GB options. Voyager and Survivor

I reviewed the Voyager....that thing is virtually indestructible. Voyager Review

wannabe1

[The Admiral]

...you boiled a flash drive?