I use a G-Drive 250GB external drive (FW 800) : http://www.g-technology.com/Products/G-DRIVE.cfm

The backup software i use is SuperDuper, which allows for perfect bootable clones allowing you to easily resinstall or restore if something goes wrong. You can also boot from your external if need be. SuperDuper also has SmartUpdate features which allows you to quickly backup and keep your external drive and mac in sync: http://www.shirt-pocket.com/SuperDuper/SuperDuperDescription.html

This has been a great backup regime for my needs.

I have several backup plans:

1. 500GB USB 2.0 drive and TimeMachine

2. SugarSync automatic online backup with remote computer and iPhone access (30GB plan)

3. Daily upload via FTP of current jobs changed files

4. Two DVDs of all completed jobs

5. Copy of completed jobs for my main customer on a disk they keep in their office.


It may look paranoic, but I had several disks and CDs failures and cannot afford to lose my docs (some books I did took me more than 600 hours...)

Time Capsule

I am so happy with Time Machine. It has really helped me out a few times lately with corrupt file in a program that otherwise would have meant a lot of work money missed.

Just went back a couple of hours in time, restored and voila it was all running fine and dandy.

Super Duper is super duper!  It could not be easier to use or harder to screw up.  It doesn't hog resources like Time Machine.  My backup plan includes 2 external drive for each internal data drive.  Reason being if the computer gets zapped (a lot of lightening around here) while backing up, both drives are hooked up at the same time.  I never have all 3 connected together. In fact the third is in a safe deposit box.  Some data is truly irreplaceable and hard drives are cheap.

The only problem with Superduper is that you need to be logged in. If you are on Leopard and are logged out and have scheduled a backup in the middle of the night, it's going to crash the Launchd process and you'll find one of your CPUs hovering at 98% or so. I just do it when I'm using the computer and wouldn't use anything else so I hope they fix it soon. I have a Mac Pro so I mirror everything with SuperDuper and also use Retrospect to back up the really important stuff to a server. If it's crazy important, I backup to a DVD disc.

For free, you can't beat Carbon Copy Cloner although it's a little trickier to setup for scheduled backups last I looked.

For those who use SuperDuper, what external harddisk do you recommend? Someone said not all works well with SuperDuper and it needs to be FireWire to boot - right?