Ok going to back up my entire HD on the PS3.

I have this external Hard Drive 250gig that has family photos and videos.

I have over 100gigs free on the external HD, and the PS3 HD is 60gigs.

Question is, if I use the external HD will it erase anything n  the external HD? or make it's own separate folder?

Also I just plug in the external HD and go to the backup and it will backup the entire PS3 Hard Drive yes/no?

It creates a new folder. The Directory of the folder is odd though. Mine's is:
PS3 -> Export -> BACKUP -> [Weird folder name that seems to reference the date of the backup. It's pure numbers and starts with 2011]

It backs up everything but trophies. Sync your trophies and no worries though.

EDIT: I don't know if the back up feature has improved since I last used restore back in 2008 but if you're like me at one point and placed your pictures, video's and games into special albums, that information isn't restored. No worries about the music but after tthe others get restored and you change the grouping settings to your created albums, everything just gets lumped together in one big folder. I stopped bothering after I found that out and just had the games displayed in folders by system format (PS3, Minis, PSP, PS One).

no sega4 life is a mod! we had a deal budy lol?

thanks for making the thread S4L as i was wondering this same question, but not for backing up data. i think you should transfer all your fotoes, family data, and music to the external hard-drive and save your internal hard-drive for games.

wht i'm going to do is get a 1 terabyte external harddrive to get all the same stuff your asking about off my PS3 and wht ever games can transfer to it i' trancfer.

thanks for your post Dgc1808