I back up all of my embroidery designs on flash drives in folders so they are easy to find. This is really the way to go as some of the new computers do not have a CD drive, you can buy the drive as an add on but do you really need that? Not if you save to a flash drive.

You can put them on a flash drive, burn a DVD or CD, or upload to wherever you back up your computer (and if you don't back up your computer, you should.)

External hard drive just for my design folders. I lost them once, it was a frightful day

I have mine all backed up on cds

I save mine to a flash drive when I download..

Some new computers come without a CD drive now. You can use dropbox.com for free cloud service. You can store a lot of embroidery designs there free of charge.

My experience has been that you really do need to put them on cd's...it's the only way you can be sure you'll always have them...I have mine organized into catagories...floral, children, birds, etc., but do what works for you...but do get them on cd's

Nena, I also have an embroidery machine. I have set up a library for my designs and save them to the computer and a Zip drive. So that it is easier to find the design I want to use my library has many sub titles such as, animals, baby, flowers, holidays, etc. instead of searching through all the designs, I look in the appropriate sub folder. This saves time and a lot of frustration, as I have thousands of designs. I best and most successful on line web site for designs is Embroidery Library. They also have a history of the designs you acquire from them.

Just about every online site keeps a record of what you bought; even if they aren't visible like Emblibrary.com. The thing with all of them is that after a while designs are archived so if you don't have the right file name/number you won't be able to get them. I download all of my designs into a folder with the name of the site/company. I also have folders for all of my CD/flash designs with the names of the companies. This way, I know what company I got what from and have a back up copy plus the orginal file name if I ever have to contact the company and get a copy. The only time I order CD's is when that's the only option I have. After the orginal goes into folders with company names, I save a copy out to a folder under the correct category so its easier to find when I need it. I normally make two copies of the cd plus I also have a portable HD. Most of the normal sized laptops being sold still come with a cd drive, its usually the smaller ones that dont'. For that, yes I bought a portable cd drive because some of my designs or programs are on them and its the only way to get them onto my laptop. Good luck with your machine and do back up. There are lots of tutorials out there with different methods of organizine them. Floriani even sells a program for under 100 that you can store all of your designs in and when you open up the program it shows you a thumbnail of all of them. Its good when you know you have something but can't remember where you stored it at or the correct name.

I would definitely save them on a usb stick (flash drive). I have an external hard drive only for all my embroidery designs as well as a folder on my computer so if one goes bad, i have the backup.