It's now getting to the point where backing up my data to DVDs is simply impossible these days. I have nearly two hundred gigabytes of films and TV programmes stored on my PC and nearly thirty gigabytes of music as well as photos and other personal documents. With each DVD holding just short of five gigabytes, a full backup was going to be a) time-consuming and b) using sixty recordable DVDs.

A better solution was some kind of mass storage device. There are plenty to choose from on the market, but out of all of them, the Western Digital My Book seemed to suit my needs best as Western Digital are a known and reasonably respected manufacturer of hard drives, plus the price, at less than eighty quid from Amazon, was extremely reasonable too compared to other, similar solutions.

The device is 'plug and play'. Connect the My Book to an available USB port, plug it into the mains and your PC should recognise the extra device after a second or two. All you need to do is copy and paste (or move) your data to the external drive and you're all done!

The hard drive is extremely easy to use and it's a lot faster than burning to DVD or using a memory stick. With it being an external drive, it's also portable meaning I can take it to a friend's house and let them backup their stuff too, if required.

Aesthetically, it's not bad on the eye and a reasonable size. It was about the size of a large paperback book (think the omnibus edition of Lord of the Rings) and I had mine sitting on a shelf, amongst some DVDs. Apart from the blue power/activity light, it blended right in and was almost indistinguishable as a computer accessory. Even though it was only a backup device, because it was invisible, I ended up having mine connected to my PC full time.

I was concerned about the noise level, but it initially seemed as quiet during operation as my laptop or internal drives. My main problem was that, when my PC was turned off, there was a distinct hum/vibration emanating from the unit. As my PC is located in my bedroom, this can be an annoyance and I needed to disconnect the My Book from either the power supply or the PC - either causes the My Book to shut down. Sadly, there was no on/off switch on the unit, so I had to fiddle around with connecting and disconnecting the USB or power cables.

Overall, the My Book is a decent backup solution. At 1 terabyte, there's certainly plenty of room for storage for the foreseeable future. It's reasonably easy on the eye (as much as an external hard drive can be) and the only real flaws are the humming noise and lack of on/off switch. If your PC is located in study or separate room, then the humming or vibration will probably not be an issue.