Newer Technology's miniStack v3

FreeAgent drives offer sleek looks, a small footprint, whisper-quiet operation and capacities of 250GB, 320GB and 500GB, and connect via a USB 2.0 interface. A step up, Seagate's FreeAgent Pro comes in 320GB, 500GB and 750GB capacities and offers FireWire 400, USB 2.0 and eSATA interfaces. Included Data Mover software automatically duplicates and/or moves selected content to multiple locations such as contacts and email to an iPod, photos to a Shutterfly account, files and folders to the FreeAgent itself or, if you prefer, to an online space with access from any browser 24/7. While the drives are PC and Mac compatible, the software is Windows only.

Newer Technology's compact miniStack v3 is available starting at $170 in capacities from 160GB to 1TB (terabyte, 1024 gigabytes), as well as a "barebones" add-your-own-hard-drive kit ($120). Acting as a hub in addition to an external drive, it offers four interfaces - one eSATA, two FireWire 800, one FireWire 400 and three USB 2.0 ports. And, in a tip-of-the-hat to Apple, it features a form factor and design that's a perfect match for the Mac mini. Included software handles backup duties under Windows with NovaStor NovaBACKUP, and on the Mac with Prosoft Engineering's Data Backup 3 and Intech's SpeedTools Utilities. The unit auto-powers on and off with your computer, is quiet in operation, features intelligent thermal monitoring and ships with FireWire 800, FireWire 400 and USB 2.0 connection cables. Plus, as your needs grow, the units are easily stackable.

When it comes to NAS drives, you have options, as well. Iomega, LaCie, Maxtor, Micronet, Newer Technology, Western Digital and others offer capable NAS units. These devices usually contain one or more hard drives and are frequently configured as RAID arrays (RAID 0 or 1 depending on specific needs, i.e. capacity and speed or redundancy). They attach via your network router and are accessed via a web interface and/or custom backup software.