[X4U] Back up ideas/suggestions needed....

[Daly Jessup]

Ed,

>Currently I have a G5 with 4GB of RAM and 300GB of HD (internal) 
>space(10.4 with no plans to go to 10.5 ever) and an external HD with 
>about 400 GB (370 used) of two external drives.

I don't understand this description. Are you saying you have two 
external enclosures, each with a 400 GB dive in it? Or are you saying 
you have two drives in one external enclosure? Or that you have two 
200-GB drives in two enclosures, totalling 400 GB?

>I use one of the external drives to back up my system to and have 3 
>copies of backup for my system.

Where does the third copy come in. You described two external drives. 
Do you have a third?

<snip>

>Essentially every saturday morning  I delete the 3rd copy (takes 
>about 2 hours)

Why don't you just reformat the external? Takes a few seconds.

>and then shut my 7X24 connection down and stop all applications like 
>email and web and my usenet reader. I then use "personal backup" to 
>backup the HD of my G5.  This takes approximately 4-5 hours.

I would suggest SuperDuper, which will make a complete bootable clone 
in about 1.5 hours.

>To summarize: I need  a way in case of disaster to recover my system 
>in a reasonably timely fashion (hopefully in less than 24 hours). My 
>plan to hand carry my backup drive as I leave my place is a big hole 
>in my system. I have severe memory issues due to a stroke and I am 
>afraid I will forget to unhook my drive and carry it out with me in 
>an emergency.

I leave it to someone else on this one. I do  not know of any fast or 
even reasonably fast way to back up remotely.  Maybe set a reminder 
to flash at you every day or two from iCal, to remove your hard drive 
in case of emergency?

Daly
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