Backup hard drives

I recently took a sale opportunity at an online computer parts retailer to order two external hard drives.  The purpose was to create multiple back ups for all of our family pictures and other important documents (and a few pc game save files!).

The hard drives I purchased are:

Hitachi Mobile 500GB External USB 2.0
Iomega eGo 500GB Portable Hard Drive SuperSpeed USB 3.0

Both Hitatchi and Iomega have good general reputations for low failure rate of products. 

Some people may ask "Why two external hard drives?  Why not just your PC and one external hard drive?  Wouldn't this provide enough redundancy backup?"

Although the Redundant Department of Redundancy may have an official ruling on the absurdity of this idea, the reasoning behind a second external hard drive is in case of fire or natural disaster.  "But how would having two external hard drives prevent a natural disaster from destroying all 3 of your save locations?" you may ask.  The second hard drive has been taken to my place of work 20 miles away.

Each month, I bring home the hard drive from work, copy any new pictures and documents from both my PC and my labtop to each external hard drive, and bring one of the hard drives back to work.

I also purchased two different brands of hard drives, not wanting to get two hard drives of the exact same lot which may have an unknownly high rate of failure down the road and both fail during the same time frame.  Also, I did not want to purchase from the same manufacturer, since hard drive models may share parts from the same supplier between models.

Overall, I am happy with the purchase of the two hard drives and the backup method.