And you folks have been extremely resourceful in answering them before.... Is a backup drive the same thing as an external hard drive?

It could be the same thing. For purposes of ensuring your data is safe, an external hard drive will work well as a backup drive.

Do any of you clone your hard drive or SSD rather than (or in addition to) backing up in the normal sense? Pros, cons?

I only back up data I think is important. I don't attempt to clone my hard drive. Having a big flash drive works good for that though. Leaving it permanently plugged into the PC and have data copied to it on a regular basis at night works well. If the HD crashes, the flash drive should have almost the latest stuff on it.

Doing that with an external drive could work also if you don't mind having it run all the time. It's a small but extra addition to your electric bill. You can also just turn it on and manually do the backup once a month but it's something to remember to do.

Using an external drive for backup makes good sense because you can store the backup drive away from your computer. That's more secure because the likelihood of both of them being lost to theft, fire, or natural disaster is lower when they're not both in the same place.

I hide my backup drive in the house when I'm away on vacation. If somebody breaks into my office and steals my computer, I still have my backup.

Son-in-law who works in computer security says that the backup device should be stored far far away -- like 100 miles! Then you're covered if your house gets hit by an atomic bomb one Sunday afternoon.

Wouldn't cloning make a lot of sense? That way if you have a HD crash, a major virus attack or something you just pop the other drive in and drive on.

Yes, they say to keep copies current in different places. Most bldgs are ready for a fire any old time -- at least most ppl's houses.

Yes, having a complete backup has saved me a couple of times when my hard drive failed and computer wouldn't even boot properly. Can't recall the name of the software, but when I get out to the office tomorrow I'll post it here. You can configure it to automatically back up your system periodically. E.g. once a week at 2am.

I've been backing up for years -- prolly not 10 times in the last 20 -- and am just wondering which is the best approach or combination.

Something I distinctly remember hearing about long ago but am not seeing in the relevant webpages is literally continuous backing -- the thing updating every file you change on the computer as you work, keeping the backup identical to the volume on the puter (except that it's not on a bootable drive).

Aha, this might be it -- 'real time' the operative fraze:

www.livefilebackup.com/

Recent reviews are hard to come by, and I count heavily on 'em

www.it-support.com.au/live-file-backup- review/2013/10/

My searching tricks are no use e.g. "live file backup" alternatives. Lots of pages want you to just backup online, but I can promise 'em that AIN'T gonna happen.