whats the best way to back up? with tm and sd
 

I recently got a macbook pro and i am a new Mac user. I was wondering how do i back up using TM and SD together? what settings do i use? do i need to partition the drive? which program do i use first to back up?

I have a 500gb firewire g tech drive.

thanks in advance :)

See this FAQ.

how do find out if the Time Machine volume is properly partitioned and formatted for the Mac (as "GUID" for Intel Macs, or "Apple Partition Map" for Power PC), and is boot compatible.

I am assuming the G tech drive came already formatted for the Mac. is that correct? if not how do i check it and format it for mac?

My mac internal is 250gb, should i partition the g tech into 2 equal partitions? 250 for SD and 250 for TM

See the topmost FAQ entry for the proper way to partition... and 250GB x 2 sounds about right.