Slash;
Excellent idea about the external CDRW drive to backup your hard drive to and Firewire is better than USB (the Firewire port will power ther CDRW device whereas the USB needs external power and should have greater throughput).
Not sure what laptop you have got but are you aware that you can probably purchase a CDRW that fits into the laptop?
Also there is a site called xdrive.com that you can use for "on line" backup of your machine and recall/restore on demand (obviously this assumes you can connect to the net).
As for choice I have just checked
http://www.usbmax.com/usb-max/Produc...ard_Drives.cfm and there are a few there as well as USB external hard drives.
B