I'm a college student, and I use my computer for nearly everything school related...shocking, I know. However, I am a bit scared because I have a tendency to tinker around with everything on computers, and occasionally I cause real bad stuff to happen...like reformatting my hard drive. So, now that I have all this important stuff on my computer, how should I back it all up?

I was looking at three options. .Mac, iPod, or a standard flash drive. If I got .Mac I could use all the little things that gives me, but when I consider it honestly it really doesn't seem all that useful given my circumstances. The flash drive would definitely work for file backup, at least for the really important stuff, not including my music, which is all on CD's anyway...except a few iTunes purchases.

The iPod, on the other hand, could be used to back up all my important data, including my music. Additionally, I could sync it with iCal and my Address book...which would actually really be good for me. So, does really work well for file backup? Are there any quirks...like I couldn't transfer files to a different computer, or my own computer after a clean wipe?