[Plant7575]

I've use 4 Macs -- 3 (a G3, a G4 and a G5) in different locations and 1 laptop (a G4). My original backup system (years ago) was to keep all files on floppies, which were easily transported. The floppies were backed up by copying them onto one of the hard drives. As my files grew, I tried ZIP disks (too expensive and cumbersome -- must transport the external drive all the time) and CDs (but only two of the computers can write a CD -- and one of those balks a lot.). It has also become an overwhelming task to keep track of my 1000s of files.

So here's my current thinking. Buy an external Firewire hard drive and a small flash drive. Use the HD to back up each of the other HDs. All of my stuff from all 4 computers would probably fit on an 80 Gig HD. And if that does get full, I could transfer stuff from the other 3 computers to the G5 (which has lots of extra space) and burn it to CDs (that's the one with the CD burner that works well.)

Then the flash drive would be used instead of floppies and Zips to move working files from computer to computer and as a short term back-up (between the regular backup times) for critical files.

Suggestions? There's probably a better way to do this. I'm willing to spend a little money on this (but I don't want to waste money.) Time and convenience are more important considerations.

[tomrock]

You could move your Home folder to the external drive with Netinfo. Of course, you'd alsways have to have the external drive connected to the computer you're using at that time.

[Madrag]

I use Déjà Vu, it comes with Toast.
Very simple and does the job.

[subego]

You may want to check out .Mac.

I avoided it for years, but now that I have it, I couldn't go back.

It won't replace your solution entirely, though it can help and streamline in many places.

I tend to use my iDisk just like I would use a flash drive.

Backup 3.0 is pretty nice, and can back stuff up to your iDisk. This would be too small and slow to do all of your backups, but depending on what kind of files you use, and how often you change them, you may only have to do the backup to the external drive once in awhile, and let your iDisk and Backup take care of things on a day to day basis.

.Mac has other benefits I wasn't expecting. Since I already have an email address, I didn't think the new one was going to help, but it's just so much more elegant than any other solution I've seen for multiple computers. It works better than IMAP, and is light-years ahead of POP, which is what I'm stuck with. The webmail component is designed with all the slickness you'd expect from Apple. My ISP's webmail sucks. Etc., etc.

[Ric_D]

I've been very happy with Backup 3 (with .Mac). Not only will it backup to iDisk, but you can backup to CD, DVD, and hard disk. Backup 3 has a scheduler which comes in handy. I have my PowerBook set to wake up at 3:14 AM every morning and a backup plan in Backup 3 that is set to run at 3:15 AM to my external LaCie hard disk.

Originally Posted by subego

You may want to check out .Mac.

I avoided it for years, but now that I have it, I couldn't go back.

It won't replace your solution entirely, though it can help and streamline in many places.

I tend to use my iDisk just like I would use a flash drive.

Backup 3.0 is pretty nice, and can back stuff up to your iDisk. This would be too small and slow to do all of your backups, but depending on what kind of files you use, and how often you change them, you may only have to do the backup to the external drive once in awhile, and let your iDisk and Backup take care of things on a day to day basis.

.Mac has other benefits I wasn't expecting. Since I already have an email address, I didn't think the new one was going to help, but it's just so much more elegant than any other solution I've seen for multiple computers. It works better than IMAP, and is light-years ahead of POP, which is what I'm stuck with. The webmail component is designed with all the slickness you'd expect from Apple. My ISP's webmail sucks. Etc., etc.