New MacFixIt Poll: Backup Strategies

Reader replies to our first MacFixIt poll (see next item) made it clear that a good backup strategy can save you from disaster - if and when a disk repair utility is not successful in repairing your drive. Our second MacFixIt Poll thus asks you to reveal just how often you do a full backup of your main hard drive. If you choose to answer, please be honest! Don't give what you think is the "correct" answer - if it is not true for you. [Note: we are defining a "full backup" as a backup that would allow you to completely recreate the contents of your drive as it was at the time of the backup. Thus, an incremental backup (with software such as Retrospect), on top of a previous complete backup, would count as a full backup.] Experts typically advise doing a full back-up every day. For corporations and other large-network systems, this clearly makes sense. But, for the individual user, especially given today's large capacity drives, efficiently doing a complete daily backup requires a large capacity high speed back-up device - such as a fast tape drive. Is the purchase of such a device really warranted, especially if most of your drive's contents are application software that could be reinstalled from their original discs? Is it important to have the ability to recreate a mirror of your entire drive? Or is it enough to just back-up your critical documents? And while we are on the subject, what combination of backup software and backup hardware device would you recommend using for the typical home/small office user? To post your views on all of these questions, use the new Backup Strategies MacFixIt Forums QuickTopic.