You can get a USB external hard drive very reasonably if you watch the sales. There seem to be two physical sizes - a smaller footprint that would be pretty easy to carry with you (runs about $100 for 40-60 gigs at Sams Club) or a larger footprint that will hold 100 gig and up. I have one that is a 160 gig version that cost me $80 after sale price and rebates on Black Friday. Watch the big box electronic and computer stores and they seem to pop up on sale on a regular basis. I have seen them in the 200-300 gig range.

You do want to be sure your computer is running USB2 / fast USB. Some may also use firewire.

If your moving to CD ?DVD is that slow, perhaps an investment in a new, faster writing drive would be an option. Internal ones are pretty cheap (wll <$100) and external ones seem to be around $100 for DVD+/- RW.