Need advice

[rtpub]

Hi, I'm a newbie on using Mac, recently bought two MACs (1 Macbook and 1 Macbook pro); I'd really like to set up a backup scheme to backup both of them (160GB & 250GB), and heard the SuperDuper is a good program for this. However, I have a few queries in mind:
1). How large the backup disk size needs to be?
2). Can I keep multiple backup copies in the same backup drive?
3). What kind of disk formats does SuperDuper support? Must it be in HFS+?
Please help!!

[dnanian]

* In general, the backup volume should be the same size as the original.

* You can partition a drive into as many partitions as you need, which means you can store multiple backups on the same drive, one per partition. Use the GUID partition scheme (see elsewhere on the forums for instructions).

* The drive must be HFS+.

[rtpub]

Thanks for the reply! So that means if I need to keep multiple backups I would require a multiple of my macbook disk size?

I thought it'd be like Symantec Ghost in the Windows world where I get an image file residing in a hard disk instead... or can SuperDuper do this as well?

[dnanian]

It's a lot better to copy directly to a drive: that way you can actually start up from the backup. Can't do that in Windows.

[rtpub]

So, let's say I start off with the unregistered version of SuperDuper (for evaluation), can I backup both my macbooks onto a single external hard disk (provided that it has enough storage space for both)?

Also, I understand that the free version only supports "backup all files" option; but does it support backup to image file (sparse file) as well? Since I have a NAS at home I'm thinking of backing up my macbooks onto the NAS as image files...

[dnanian]

Yes, assuming you partition it appropriately. And, yes, it'll also back up to images, but always as an 'erase then copy' backup.

I don't generally advise a NAS/Network backup as your only/primary backup. Note, too - much slower than directly to a drive.