Data Storage Backup Plan

I've been doing some final Christmas shopping the past few days. I hate shopping. It takes me forever to figure out what to buy, and then I spend lots of time comparing brands and prices. I'll be so glad when Christmas is over, and I can get back to normal.
My brother just wants money and gift cards, so at least he was easy. He wants to buy a laptop since his desktop died. To go along with the cash, I purchased a Kingston Digital 16 GB USB 2.0 Hi-speed Datatraveler Flash Drive DT101G2/16GBZ. It's $9.99 at Amazon.com. Pretty good price for 16gb of data storage. I got one for myself too. I really need to come up with a better backup system for my laptop. If anyone can recommend free backup software, please leave me a comment.
I'm paranoid about making backups of individual files when writing code, but when it comes to making backups of my hard disk, I need improvement. I just don't take the time to do it, so I need something automated. A 16gb flash drive should be a good size for storing what I need to backup.
There are companies out there that specialize in backup systems. One company is called Nexsan. They are one of the leaders in data storage production. Their storage systems have built in features to backup and restore. They have an E-series storage system that is ideal for mid-sized companies.
Backing up your data is crucial. The hard drive on my old work laptop suddenly went one day and nothing could be recovered. That really sucked, but I didn't really lose anything because I had backups. Good thing.