The only question is where those 50 subdirectories are. My current directory structure originated when I was on Linux. Within my "home" directory, I created a subdirectory called "develop" and another called "personal." I think the purpose of each subdirectory is obvious. Below each of those, I have specific subdirectories for each project (for the develop subdirectory) and specific subdirectories for different aspects of my personal life (in the personal subdirectory). When I want to back it up, I backup exactly two directories: develop and personal. Bam, done!

When I moved to Windows XP, I just copied those two directories (and all their subirs) to the "My Documents" directory which was essentially the XP equivalent of the "home" directory.

Now, on Vista, I copied them again but now to the "Users/Craig" subdirectory which looks a lot like the Linux structure I had originally.

The only thing I don't put in these two directories is music since I have no need to backup all my music every time I backup my active development and personal directories.

In any case, I find that to be a lot more organized than scattering subdirectories throughout the root directory and it's pretty portable--I don't really have to care where on the hard drive my develop/ and personal/ directories are; I just have to know where they are and know that the directory structure below them will always be the same.

Regards,
Craig Steiner