1. you have a problem with the power source - and may use therefore 2,5" drives in an external case only
- maximum capacity is available up to 500gb - and some 600 or 750gb drives should be allready around.
I am not sure, whether such drives would run powered by usb power only ....?
The 250gb or 320gb (Samsung) do work+
2. The back up is simple to organise with any good back up software which allows to define scheduled back up operation.
Install the software on both computers - define on each pc a new back up process, make a full backup of complete pc
- and define a schedule for back up at specific time for incremential back up.
I would make two partitions, one for pc a, one for pc b - define the back up time for a in the morning, the back up time
for b in the evening. If a back up is lost - on most back up softwares you are able to define automatic back up - if a
scheduled back up was missed.
Not to forget that the back up procedures of pc a and pc b should have different process names.
simple - but needs disciplined user - didnt meet one yet - even not me

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