Back up solutions

[MarkS]

Hi guys, not got on much recently...
I managed to win back a contract for some regular design work, and it all kicked of with a 152 page (+covers) glossy annual, that hopefully the postie should be delivering my copy today. And for the same client I am now working on a 52 page tabloid sized newsletter, so its all go, and all good.

So, since it seems I will be getting loads more work, I think it's time I updated my back up system, the only problem being that I am using both PC's and Macs - I have upgraded the HDD in the iMac to a 500gb, and I use that as my main drive which is quick enough for me - I do most of my Photoshop work on the PC and any illustrator, Quark, inDesign on the Mac - my emails are also on the PC, but I basicly work on all projects in a shared folder on the macs drive.
Currently I use an old(ish) IDE drive in a USB2 enclosure as my back up, running it of the iMac, and I am just wondering if this as good an idea as any - I was looking at the Western Digital My Book's they are 1TB, USB, Firewire 400/800 (my iMac is 400 - its an oldish 2Ghz PowerPC G5 iMac).
What I was thinking of is to have one Back up drive unit, but create auto back-ups from both the Mac and the PC sytems (I dont know if this is possible) - anyone any better ideas???

[KevJaques]

I use a 500gb NAS here atm, soon to be 2, so I can use em across the pcs here, I would also look to backing up on a regular basis to cd or dvd, don't just rely on hdds.
There are also online services but not too keen on those, obviously for small setups sometimes the simplest of backups is needed.

Also using some kind of versioning program such as visual source safe or subversion might be beneficial, I have used both in teams and it's an essential part of the backup plan, that's a bit more of a direct backup but versioning is really useful, you will want to back up the back up too as above ;)

[Pixels Ink]

I use a Netgear Storage Central Turbo SC101T and find thats been very reliable for backup.

It has two drives in it which are mirrored. Whenever I save my work it saves a copy to both drives, so if one goes tits up I still have the other drive with my work all safe.

Once a month I also back everything up to a terrabyte drive which I keep at home in case of fire at the office.