Basic Backup Strategy Advice

[Gusto5]

I'm trying to get some basic info on backing up my G5.
I know there are a great number of bells and whistles in SuperDuper but I'm looking to establish a basic strategy.

My goal is to simply to have a bootable backup HD and to backup my media (photos/video/audio/documents/files).

I have two internal hard drives (for the purpose of this discussion I'll call them A & B) and one large external HD which has been partitioned to mirror the two internal HDs (AA & BB):

Internal HDs
A G5 OS HD
B G5 Media HD

External HD (partitioned)
AA G5 Bkup OS HD
BB G5 Bkup Media HD

For my A HD when I want to do a backup I assume I should use the following settings:
COPY Select: A G5 Boot HD to AA G5 Bkup OS HD
USING Backup - all files
DURING COPY Copy Different Files

For my B HD I assume I should use the following settings:
COPY Select: B G5 Media HD to BB G5 Bkup Media HD
USING Backup - user files
DURING COPY Copy Different Files

Questions:

1) Does this setup look OK - or what problems could this setup create?

2) If I added some additional media to my backup BB G5 Bkup Media HD , will using the setting "Backup - user files" and "Copy Different Files" create a problem for me - or will this setting ignore the added new media and basically check the B G5 Media HD against the BB G5 Bkup Media HD and only copy what's different from the original B G5 Media HD to the BB G5 Bkup Media HD - and leave the new media alone?

3) Are there other procedures besides "Schedule Backup" that you would suggest I add for my basic backup goal?

4) One other concern I have is, I tend to try and keep stuff (media/files etc) much longer than I should - can't stand throwing stuff away. Using the above setup my BB G5 Bkup Media HD will continue to fill up until I can't put any more in.
I could just buy another HD and keep going but if I decide to go into my B G5 Bkup Media HD at some point and trash stuff (media/files) what setting would I use to make the BB G5 Bkup Media HD resemble the cleaned up B G5 Bkup Media HD?

Thanks in advance for your help.

Gus

[dnanian]

Looks fine, except you be using "Backup - all files" at all times, and you should be using "Smart Update", not "Copy Different"... certainly, you should be using "Smart Update" for the non-media drive...

Once you're full, you can use erase, then copy or smart update to get the media drive to sync up.

[Gusto5]

Thanks for your help.
Since I still can't tell if the backup setup I've described - with your modification added - is the most optimal - could you pass on what setup you use for your backup situation?
I expect I could learn a good deal from seeing that.

Thanks

Gus

[dnanian]

Sure. I rotate three physical backups, a daily, a weekly and a monthly, all Smart Updated.

In addition, I do a daily Smart Update to an image stored on a networked NAS device (an Infrant ReadyNAS).

[Gusto5]

Thanks for passing on your setup - that helps a good deal.

I now see why it makes sense to use Smart Update All files for my boot hard drive - but if I have a lot of additional large video & photo files (>200-300 GB) on my Backup Media HD and I want to store them along side my current Media HD Backup using Smart Update - I will erase them I believe - is that correct?

Sounds like I may want to have a separate Deep Storage HD I don't update or backup, I just add files to it - these files will be ones I don't need to use any time soon.
And then what I do regularly (daily/weekly/monthly) is backup both the boot HD and the Media HD using your Smart Update All Files method for both.

How does that sound?

Thanks again

[dnanian]

If you want to store files on a drive, partition it into multiple volumes, one for storage and one (or more, whatever) for backup.

You probably do want a place to archive if you plan on doing that!