[garyton]

I have a new Mac Pro 8 core system with Tiger OS that has two 750 G drives.
Right now the second drive has no data. In the past with my windows computer there have been times that I have had to put in a bootable DVD with the operating system and my original programs to restore and get the computer running again.
What is the best option for this new Mac? Can I burn a DVD with the OS and applications that came on the first drive and keep this in case I need to do a system restore in case of a virus or curruption? Should I copy everything from the first drive to the second drive and leave the second drive alone in case the first one becomes corrupted and then switch main drives if the fisrt one gets corrupted? It seems like a lor of wasted space for this though.
I also want to back up data periodically such as pictures and documents. Should I just use a drive for backup of data and keep the applications off the drive? My wife uses this mostly and she is terrible about backing up and even though she is constantly running filters and anti virus scans and deleting cookies and everything foreign, eventually my PC computer would lock up or fail to work and I end up having to bring in a tech to get everything working again which involves reloading windows and programs and trying so salvage data.
How do I handle this new Mac to rpevent this and what do I create now to make now to restore everything later easier?
A new Mac user that relies on his wife as the system administrator
Thanks
Gary

[C.A.T.S. CEO]

You don't need virus protection for a Mac. Unless you have windows machines on your network too.

I use Backup, Apples backup application for backups, it comes with every Mac (I trhink), if it doesn't you can download it off of Apples site.

If the system ever crashes, take the OS X restore CD and do a "Archive & Install*" and see if that helps, if not do a full restore and then restore your backed up data.

*a Archive and Install restores the system without wiping out your applications and user data.

[tomrock]

You could use SuperDuper to back up to your empty drive. It clones your boot drive.

SuperDuper!

[hemant]

You could even setup a RAID array with two of your harddisks for the ultimate backup solution.

[angelmb]

Originally Posted by tomrock 

You could use SuperDuper to back up to your empty drive. It clones your boot drive.

SuperDuper!

Same advice. I use it not only for the blatantly obvious backup reason but also due to when I clone a hard disk to another one I get the same 100% functional system + apps but with zero file fragmentation and then all is snappier

[OreoCookie]

(1) A RAID1 is not a backup solution (in particular not the `ultimate' backup solution).
(2) Cloning is not a very good backup solution either.

Instead, I would suggest the following:
(1) Sift through your data and prioritize the data. In particular, think about how often the data changes.
(2) Have more than one type of backup available for all, but the least important data!
(3) Make sure one of the backups is offsite!
(4) The frequency depends on the type of backup.
(5) Make sure to have several backups at hand (this immediately excludes cloning as your only means of a backup).

What does this mean in practice:
(1) My mails and documents are rather small and change often. They represent literally hundreds of hours worth of data. I back them up regularly on my external harddrive and once a month on DVDs. That's because it's still feasible to burn DVDs.
My music gets backuped less often, once or twice a year. I have older backups with 95 % of my music. If I lose 5 % it won't be the end of the world.
My pictures get backuped regularly. Aperture saves it onto two vaults on two different external harddrives.
I don't backup applications: either I have the DVDs or I can download them online and enter my registration keys. I don't clone my drive either, an OS X installation takes me about half a day until I have restored all settings, installed all apps and fonts.
(2) Right now, I save my data onto an external harddrive and DVDs, but soon, I will also save some of it on my department's backup server (I'm abroad, so it's not an option to transmit several GB via WLAN). Obviously the frequency of the backup depends on the amount of data and the type of storage you have.
(3) Some of my DVDs are at my parents' place, some are at my apartment in Germany. If my ProBook and my external harddrive are stolen (both are on my desk), not all is lost.
(4) I try to back up at least twice a month. Leopard should simplify that tremendously.
(5) Most people don't realize that the main threat to data is the user him/herself: a file gets deleted or overwritten. When you don't have several backups at hand, you probably won't be able to recover the file.