Ok, thanks to my whole laptop situation, I’ve decided I need a real backup solution. So here’s what I’m contemplating:

• Acronis True Image 8.0 ($39.99) – I’m leaning towards this rather than the infamous Norton Ghost because it supports USB 2.0 PCMCIA cards, something Norton doesn’t. And backing up via USB 1.0 is something nobody should ever have to do.
• Seagate ST3250823A 250 GB ATA Internal Hard Drive ($116.00 + 2.99 Ship) – I selected this drive for it’s 5 year warranty, the fact that it runs cool (thermally), and has a great reputation for reliability. Not to mention it’s a decent performer.
• AMS VENUS DS-2316CBK Aluminum 3.5″ USB+IEEE1394 Black External Enclosure ($53.99 + $2.99 Ship) – Selected because it’s well made (aluminum not plastic), has a good reputation, and has effective cooling (something many cases lack). USB and Firewire means I can do what ever I need with it.

I’m wondering if I can effectively partition it? Save 80GB for laptop backup, 80GB for Mac Mini Backup, and 40GB for Linux Backup (those are drive sizes, not file sizes, yes I know 250GB isn’t really 250GB. That way I can back everything up rather well, and still have a little space left over. A firewire drive is faster than the internal mac mini drive, so I can use it as a scratch disk when compiling Firefox on the Mac for a performance boost. Carbon Copy Cloner (free), SuperDuper ($19) are good options on the mac side for backup.

And that backup system will cover 2 computers. I’m thinking when I finally get my new hard drive, that’s going to be my backup solution.