[goatman596]

I'm a college student, and I use my computer for nearly everything school related...shocking, I know. However, I am a bit scared because I have a tendency to tinker around with everything on computers, and occasionally I cause real bad stuff to happen...like reformatting my hard drive. So, now that I have all this important stuff on my computer, how should I back it all up?
I was looking at three options. .Mac, iPod, or a standard flash drive. If I got .Mac I could use all the little things that gives me, but when I consider it honestly it really doesn't seem all that useful given my circumstances. The flash drive would definitely work for file backup, at least for the really important stuff, not including my music, which is all on CD's anyway...except a few iTunes purchases.
The iPod, on the other hand, could be used to back up all my important data, including my music. Additionally, I could sync it with iCal and my Address book...which would actually really be good for me. So, does really work well for file backup? Are there any quirks...like I couldn't transfer files to a different computer, or my own computer after a clean wipe?

[johnd0e]

hi,
i'm using my ipod for those purposes. Besides the necessary regualr backups, the iPod contains a backup of the my current cvs server's directory structure, contacts, keys etc. It's actually very easy and quite comfortable, just enable 'hard disk mode' for the ipod and there you go. Has worked flawlessly for nearly a year now, incl. the migration to tiger and about 2 or 3 erase&installs. /forums/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wink.gif
The only 'problem' I ran into is the fact that it's using the 'Mac filesystem', so it can't be read from WInd0w$ PCs. /forums/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/frown.gif If it's formatted with FAT32, iTunes complains... since I don't really use 'the other OS' (at least not without being forced /forums/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wink.gif ), it doesn't matter to me. If you need to access those fies from Wind0w$-PCs, maybe someone around here has a solution other than partitioning the iPod and put the Backups on a separate FAT32 partition..

[pdrayton]

I clone my hard drive on my iPod.
Should my hard drive fail, or if I make a change that messes things up, I can always boot up using the iPod on my PowerBook or any other Mac with a firewire port.
Carbon Copy Cloner is a great tool for making a bootable clone on an iPod... but if you intend to frequently access files from the iPod you should really use an external firewire drive designed specifically for that.