Geek APB

So last week I bought RAM and an external hard drive.

...It's so hard to feel girly after a sentence like that.

(It's also hard to feel like I'm not totally full of it, because the extent of my independent thought was typing in my credit card number. Thank goodness for Matt and Consumer Reports.)

So anyway. Got all this geeky stuff to make room on my packed-to-the-gills computer, to keep safe all that stuff that's packing it, and to make it go faster. Because I want instant access to everything ever created. What?

I installed the hard drive my own self yesterday, which frankly I'm pretty proud of, not only because I managed it, but also because it involved untangling the jungle of connective black snakey things under my desk. And everything turns on still. And I didn't use the wrong plug and fry anything. (This time. But I digress yet again.)

Here's my point. I want to use the drive to house my photos. I don't want them on my computer. I want them on Flickr and saved on the external hard drive. But, I also want to use the drive to regularly do a complete backup.

So. Can I just do a complete backup, then delete all the photos from the computer, and then back up regularly? Will the drive keep all the photos? Or will it rewrite over them the next time it backs up, since they're no longer on my computer? Do I have to partition the drive to keep the periodic backups away from the other stuff?

I can't find an answer on the BounceBack software. And Matt doesn't know either. I'm digging around on Seagate's website now. So: Help!

Updated to add: Tommy the Earthquake Simulator knows ev er y thing.