I've always been happy to tell people how they should have multiple backups of all their important files, in different physical locations - but I've never been quite as strict about it doing it myself as I should have been...

Well, this is about to change. After realising that my off-site backups hadn't been updated in a month, and in any case missed out about 50GB of files from some older jobs, I sat down with a list of my existing hard drives, their capacities and a rough estimate of my current working files. After some juggling of figures I worked out a a scheme which will give me three complete sets of HDs - immediate working files, daily backup copies and weekly backup copies. The daily and weekly copies will get swapped with each other on a weekly basis, to another location.

Down to the nitty gritty - after purchasing a few extra drives I now have:

Working files:
MacBook Pro, Aperture Library on the internal drive, mostly referenced Masters. Assorted current non-photographic project files outside Aperture.

1TB external HD. This will contain all the referenced Masters for the Aperture Library, once I've consolidated them together from a few different drives. This will also store all my older non-Aperture files and larger 'current' projects, such as stitching big panoramas which would clutter up the MBP internal drive unnecessarily. This might seem a bit short on space, but for most of the last year I've been busy enough with writing and coding that there has been less time available for photography work...
500GB external HD. This has a bootable backup of the MBP system partition, can be used as a scratch drive for video, panorama stitching & Photoshop, and as a general overflow. This also contains a duplicate Library, updated via ChronoSync every so often.
2nd 500GB drive, used as a Time Machine drive for the MBP - giving me another easily restored (and up to date) way of getting the OS back, plus all the snazzy TM stuff.

1st backup consists of a 1TB drive and a 500GB drive, each used to backup one of the equivalent-sized working drives via ChronoSync on a daily basis.

2nd backup, as above.

Finally, a second Time Machine drive which gets swapped with the current one each week when the 1st and 2nd backup drives get swapped over.

Once all the working files are consolidated together from their various current locations on different drives and machines, I'll be making a big effort to keep this backup schedule going properly, and will have a lot more peace of mind as a result...

Now, where was I? Oh yes - 'Copying 179,264 items to "Max1" 21.95GB of 380.08GB - About 3 hours'

Ian

P.S. I looked briefly at online backup, but after the recent Digital Railroad fiasco I'm a bit wary...