There are many possibilities for storing your backup copies. You can always make an extra copy of your important files on your own hard drive. Usually it is a good idea to back up files to an external location where they are safe if anything should happen to your hard drive and you lose your original files. This could be an external hard drive, a flash drive, or any other external storage device. I have several external drives on which I keep clones of my system and daily incremental backups of my Home folder which includes all my personal files.

My "simplest scenario" backup suggestion for everyone:

1. Make a daily backup of you Home-Folder and any other personal files to an external drive or partiton. This can be a daily update or a series of incremental backups. More on incremental backups....
2. Make a full clone of your whole system to a dedicated hard drive or partiton and update it once a week (or make a new one by choosing to erase the clonedestination.)
3. And Better yet: make another clone or Home-Folder backup to a second drive and save one of these external drives off-site if possible. I have heard of lightning taking out someones computer along with all the external hard drives connected to it!