In Search of the Ideal Backup....

[Jude]

The greatest thing about running a mac is the opensource software that programmers come up with to help the little guy at a very affordable price. I've been close to buying the full version of SD! for sometime, but I need some help first.

1. I'm running a macbook pro with an iomega 500G USB external hard drive. Does doing a full backup result in a bootable backup with USB? if so...how do I know?

2. I do a lot of work with movies, music, picture editing and so forth and I would like to use my bigger external drive for more than just a backup. Idealy, I would like to keep other files on there as well as my current pro hard drive. is this possible? I found the manual explanation of Sparse Images to be vague and hard to understand.

3. If still have my OS X Tiger disks from my macbook purchase, should I even be concerned with a full system backup? Could I just regularly backup my Home folder on my own and pair that with my copy of the OS to survive through a system crash?

I could use some guidance from more experienced mac users! thanks!

-JUDE