Backup System
Like all too many computer users, I don't really do proper system backups. I've never really had anything to do good backups to. That's about to change.
Floppies are ridiculously small for many files, and have been for some time. I used to move stuff to floppy just to make room, but that was when my largest hard drive was 120 MB. I'm running from a 120 GB hard drive nowadays.
CDs are better, but still it would take several CDs to hold a proper full backup and it's a pain to generate the CD-spanning backups. I did burn a few CDs a few weeks ago when I wasn't sure it was only the CPU fan going out. It was better than nothing (or floppies!) but it was annoying.
I don't have a DVD writer, though even that would be limited as DVDs hold 4.7 GB and even without using half of the hard drive that would be several DVDs.
Tapes? Nobody I know who has used tape backup likes tape backup.
The obvious solution, backing up the hard drive to another hard drive had a problem. Why put wear on the drive that holds the backup? But it'd be a pain to dig into the computer each time to connect the backup drive. RAID would be a solution that would allow recovery if a disk went, but that's not quite the same as a real backup.
Today I ordered what will be my solution: a 250 GB external hard drive with a USB 2.0 connection (and firewire, so if need be jmaynard can use it with reasonable speed - the iMac evidently only has USB 1.1). I'll be able to connect the drive without taking anything apart, run a proper full backup, and disconnect it and power it down until the next backup or a restore if need be. At 250 GB, it should hold my main hard drive twice over, with a little room to spare. So I should be able to do a backup without overwriting the last one, which is something I find reassuring.
A full backup may take a while, but it'll be a set and let it run thing rather than babysitting the system to swap media. That convenience means I'll actually do the backups like I ought.