It's always good to have redundant storage. I got tired of burning DVDs all the time. Plus, I end up spending more money, find a place to store all the DVD collections, and having to search for the right DVDs if I ever needed something. What a pain. I have an external drive via USB hookup that stores all my data files, leaving the main hard drive for software access and installs. I work off of the external drive most of the time. I just wish there was a hub/switch of some kind where I can just leave my external drive plugged in and at the same time, have it connected to all my PCs. Oh, wait--there's a USB hub, but don't know if it will allow me to work in that kind of scenario. Uh-oh, got timed out again, man.