Come on folks.
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If you are just saving files use a USB 2.0 flash drive as those are virtually unbreakable and you can get 512mb models now for 29.99 after rebate on sale. Also, they allow extremely easy file transfer from computer ot computer and it is very portable.
Tape drives were used in the past but now a DVD burner is the ticket for backing up -- as your Toshiba M35S320 does not have a DVD burner you could either burn to CD's (which may be enough but have far less capacity per disk) or buy an external USB 2.0 or firewire DVD burner ...........
The other thing you could do, of course, is buy a 2nd notebook hard drive and put it into an external enclosure (see Newegg.com, etc) -- then you can use Symantec Ghost to create an exact copy of your internal hard drive on the hard drive hooked up via USB 2.0 or Firewire --this is the same procedure for upgrading to a new larger or faster hard drive -- note you can not boot the notebook from the external hard drive.
However, if the internal hard drive failed you could immediately remove it and swap it with the ghost image on the external hard drive (put that one into the notebook) and hit the ground running in minutes !!!!!!!!