Backup is a lot like flossing: no matter how frequently you do it, some expert is going to say you should be doing it better or more often. That's why HP's SimpleSave is among the easiest back-up drives to use.

Still the most hassle-free and effective online home backup system.

A flexible, high-speed backup service at a price that’s more than reasonable.

A quiet and efficient device, but expensive at 48p per gigabyte

The LaCie Little Big Disk Quadra is less than the size of a Harry Potter book, yet crams in two 500GB 2.5in hard disks.

Powerful and decent value, but ease of use could be better.

An easily managed appliance for small offices. Performance is modest, but it offers useful remote access features

D-Link offers a well-built desktop NAS appliance that looks good value, but for business users it’s short of features

The Maxtor Blackarmor has one thing that other USB hard drives don’t - military grade data security in a very stylish package

Excellent business features, let down by poor performance.