Hello Kyoco, Thanks for the advice. I shall research the products you mention.  
I have a Dell Inspiron 15R 5520 laptop with Windows 8 installed byDell. The Dell Backup and Recovery Application (not the earlier Backup andRecovery Manager) in its basic form is also pre-installed. I have purchased theupgrade to the Premium version of the product in order to utilise the SystemBackup function. However it appears that the product does not write aSystem Backup directly to an USB flash memory stick. I do not wish to purchasean external disk drive. Can anyone advise the best and cheapest way of backingup a current System Backup onto an USB flash memory stick.  
Backing up a Windows 8 System Backup onto an USB Flash Drive 