I was at Fry's tonight getting a replacement for my old CD Writer and overheard the question

Will I be able to schedule a backup onto this?

The gentleman in question was holding a Seagate external USB drive. The associates sort of looked around and pointed to a different box that had printed 'One touch backups'. Of course that didn't answer the question now did it?

There are far better articles by people who have spend more time explaining this then me, so I will only mention some considerations then toss in a bunch of links to those other sites.

• Determine what you need to backup and why
• Get in the habit of saving data in the same directories
• If you have databases, full backups, take a copy home/off-site. Backups in the office do you no good if you have a fire
• if it is business related, then plan a definite rotation where some of your backups are off-site
• USB external drives are great, I use one... They are also portable and easily stolen. DVD/Cd's are easier to put in a locked drawer
• Have a schedule and stick to it.
• DVD/CD media is cheap compared to the data. Do not use Rewritable disc's, just use write once and put them in a dark place so they'll last longer.
• Test your backups. See if you can read the data on your media. Backups are only good if they are actually backing up data and you only know this if you check it

Some links:
Backup basics: What should you back up?
Windows XP Backup Made Easy - Windows 2000 isn;t that much different
Lab Mice list of backup links/references
Several CD/DVD burning software has backup capability and finally, Fred Langa of the Langalist has lots of mentions, links and articles on how to backup and restore your systems for the folks who like to dig in.