How do I back up my iTunes and playlists to an external drive?

my laptop has recently crashed and I've lost over 8500+ songs. I am in the process of restoring my songs, and need to back up songs/ playlists to an external drive as I go, can anybody assist, please?
thanks

See Make a split library portable for advice on getting your library into the correct shape for storing on an external drive.
See Recover your iTunes library from your iPod or iOS device for advice on retrieving any useful information from your devices.
See Backup your iTunes for Windows library with SyncToy as suggested by hhgttg27 for backup advice. If you are going to run your library from an external drive connected to your laptop then you need a second external drive to act as backup to the first. Hard drives can fail at any time without warning.
tt2

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