Backing up

Without my resident computer geek, I was getting worried about not knowing how to back up a year's worth of photos and my earth-shattering, valuable information. So my brother got me a portable drive for that purpose and I'm not sure but I actually think I got it installed okay by myself.

Question: Should it be taking 2 days to do a complete backup? I DO have a ton of photos...I'm a gramma, you know. Maybe I ought to delete a few emails before I back up next time.