something like a one-touch backup solution (i think)

i'm looking for suggestions. i want to make my situation more secure. i currently have one drive for windows and another for music/movies/misc downoads. i think i want to instead have one (maybe sata) hard drive in my computer (probably 200gb +) and i want another external hard drive that i can very easily backup the entire 200gb to.

what is my best, easiest solution? i have seen the maxtor one-touch, as well as a couple similar items that are just enclosures and software, you supply the hard drive. it doesn't seem like there are many options. are there any third party applications (open source?) that i could use with any external drive? instead of usb, is a network drive an option (would cost be much greater?)? is this a bad set-up?

my reasoning is that i can create an OS partition and a storage partion on the main hard drive (similar to what i have now). the backup will be completely separate from the computer (even though a catastrophic event inside the computer could potentially destroy the backup as well, in my mind it seems a little less likely). is there something better/smarter/cheaper i should look into? my main concerns are simple hard drive faiure, viruses, and general computer meltdown-ness (lightnightning, explosions, etc inside my case). i was thinking me (once a week maybe) turning on the external drive and telling the program to backup would prevent viruses from infecting the backup (i would hope i could notice and catch anything - this thinking is somewhat flawed, since i could be infected and just backup the infection without ever knowing, but again i think this is a little unlikely). this way, i would also not lose the performance from a raid setup, and raid would also be 100% likely to backup any infection (right?)

sorry, i'm rambling. so basically:
is an external one-touch solution safe/good/effective?
usb or network drive (cost, performance)?
are there ways to do one-touch with free software and any usb drive?

An external drive will be safer from viri and certain types of catastrophic events like power surges. Networked drives are more convenient since generally they're mounted and on at all times, but that exposes them to those same risks above. A virus that's deleting all your files can certainly attack a network drive. That same power surge will likely hit everything on the same circuit or in your home. Just remember to store your external drive someplace safe (a fireproof safe is a good idea if you can't keep it outside your house).

In terms of backup software, every NT-based machine has NTbackup on it. That utility isn't the most capable, but it does fine for making routine backups. On any sort of UNIX system you can just script things up nicely.

awesome, thanks. i have xp home, but installed it from the cd (after a quick search on microsoft.com).
i'll probably eventually read through all the stuff for windows backup, but from my quick encounter, does it only make a backup file? i only spent a short amount of time looking at it, but i was thinking of something that would create an identical drive to the one in the system. a backup file would be close, and are there any benefits to just having a backup file? or can that program do just a perfect copy of the entire drive?

if there are any simpler (free) solutions, i'm open to more ideas. my perfect solution would be a power button on the usb drive. when i turned the drive on, an icon would pop up in my taskbar. if i clicked the icon, it would make the usb drive a duplicate of the drive in the system. i think i can get very close with ntbackup if i can wade through the documentation, and just make a batch file. (any assistance/translations/ andor quick do-it-for-mes accepted link)

i think my christmas list is set for a couple new drives and a usb enclosure.

i found exactly what i was looking for. its called synctoy and its from microsoft its perfect
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/using/digitalphotography/prophoto/synctoy.mspx

Hey Zip22,

How do you like the SyncToy? Did you go with a NAS network hardrive or USB?

i really like the sync toy. updates are quick and easy. i went with USB. i keep it unplugged until i update it once a week.

If you're simply backing up look at this
http://www.educ.umu.se/~cobian/cobianbackup.htm
If you want to protect a hard disc failure use this-(from other post)
both are totally free (no validation required)

DriveImage XML is free & will make & restore a backup in windows only. But, you still need an OS disc so that bartpebuilder (& the driveimage_xml plugin) can create a bootable disc with a gui for driveimagexml. I just downed the 3 files and did it. Took just under 30 minutes complete to backup my c drive using windows shadow copy (while playing some music). I normaly use acronis true image which takes about 5 minutes to restore or backup. However the bootdisc that pebuilder created worked perfect, listing all my drives with ease.

dixmlsetup.exe -windows backup/restore gui-sweet
pebuilder3110a.exe -still need OS disc
driveimage_xml.cab -plugin for pebuilder