preparing for Time Machine

[LuKreme]

On 13-Oct-2007, at 19:34, Kevin Callahan wrote:
> Not knowing the details of Time Machine's preferences and options,  
> I'd like to buy a drive BEFORE Leopard ships, so that the day I've  
> installed Leopard, I'm all set for Time Machine.
>
> Given I currently have separate external drives for photos, music  
> and videos (I have 5 drives hanging off my MBPro) - -and  
> considering I do a fair amount of audio and video editing  
> throughout the day, is there some size ratio between my working  
> data set (size) vs what I should plan for a backup drive?  I  
> suppose it all depends on how far back you want to keep file  
> changes in TM - so it's probably a dumb question, but

It really depends on how often that data CHANGES.  For example, my  
music folder never changes.  I might add more files, but the files  
themselves don't get changed.  Same with my photos, which only rarely  
change and usually only when they are added to iphoto and I clean up  
and crop and whatever.

> I've read you can define multiple drives as backup drives for Time  
> Machine, so maybe I shouldn't worry about it.  But on day one, I'd  
> like to have something in place.

I have no idea on that.  I plan on setting it to backup my $HOME and  
NOT backup any of my music or photos or the core system files (I  
think I read that was an option, so it will back up non-core system  
files) as I already keep two backup copies of all of those.  Well,  
not the system, I don't keep a backup of that.

The things that change the most for me are ~/Library/Mail and ~/ 
Sites, and to a much lesser extent, ~/Documents/

-- 
Critics look at actresses one of two ways: you're either bankable or  
boinkable.