If you use the Smart Update feature of SuperDuper, it will only update the changed files, so your backups will be quicker. Otherwise you will be needlessly erasing and recopying all your data every time you back up.
Having a complete backup on an external drive will protect you in case your main drive fails. If that happens, you will have your data on only one good drive. That is why I suggested having more than one external FireWire drive. If one drive fails, your first FW backup now becomes your main drive and you will still have your second FW drive as a backup for the first one.
Another reason to have more than one external FW drive is to keep one offsite to protect against fire, etc.
If your data is really important, you should also consider backing up just your User file to a DVD once a week. This will provide a historical archive of your data at a given point in time, which can be handy if a file becomes corrupt. You may be copying the same corrupt file over and over to your FW drives, but don't realize it until you try to access it. In that case you can go back to one of your historical archives and get the file before it became corrupted.
David
Last edited: Jul 26, 2007