I am lost and need some guidance

Question

Please bear with me for being so explicit on my posting, but I don't have a simpler way. But need some ideas to create a simple, safe workflow that includes back up.
I only use my Int HD (350GB), to install and run Apps; otherwise, I use Ext HDs. I have approximate 150GB of images, and another 50 GB of misc. files.
I have the following Ext HD:
1- 2 TB FW/USB -got a great deal brand new
2- 1 TB FW/USB already in use. I have 1 Partition (250 GB) while I was using Tiger
I used it to create a Boot up Dr, backing up Apps. But no longer use it.
I have been having some difficulty with this drive; sometimes it doesn't get recognized or stays on. I will be replacing the electric power cord, and all cables.
I am not sure if I should invest the time to re-format the entire drive and eliminate the Partition or just leave untouched.
3- 500 GB USB - secondary copy (non-RAI)
4- 350 GB USB - third copy (off site)
I am trying to decide how to use these drives, and hopefully, without the need to re-formatting them, but who knows. In addition, I would like to take advantage of TM for my back up.
5 Which DR should I set up as my destination DR for TM?
If I use the 2 TB is it better to set as RAID 0,better performance but if one drive fails, I'd be SOL, right?
On the other hand RAID 1, the redundancy factor would increase overhead. Any suggestion.
I also use Lightroom and would like to know how I should set it up to back up LR (non-image).
And lastly, about TM can I be select a specific source files for back ups? And can I back up different source Drives?
Is there a way that I could prevent TM not to back up Cache, because it will increase the overhead
Again, any suggestion would be appreciated

Answer 1

crossover wrote:
I called Applecare yesterday and told me that TM only works with the Internal HD, no other DR, not sure about that. I usually get better answers here than wasting my time calling them, go figure.
That's just plain wrong. Some of them don't seem to know much about Time Machine except the basics (and, to be fair, most Mac users don't have data on external drives, so it likely doesn't come up much). But yes, TM will back-up any internal or directly-attached external USB or F/W drive/partition, as long as it's formatted Mac OS Extended. In fact, in most cases it will do that by default -- if you don't want something backed-up, you have to specifically exclude it.
I have never tried TM and not sure if that would be a good workflow or just use other Apps like the one you mentioned
There are advantages and disadvantages to TM, as with any other app. One of the main advantages of TM is the very fast, hourly, incremental backups of additions and changes. This gives you an excellent chance of recovering a previous version of something that was changed or deleted in error (such as "Save" instead of "Save as"), or somehow corrupted.
And there really isn't any workflow, once it's set up (which is also quite easy). TM just does it's thing.
First it does a full backup of everything on your system (less some caches, system workfiles, logs, trash, etc.). That, of course, is a lengthy process.
Thereafter, it will do an incremental backup hourly, as long as your Mac is awake and the external drive is attached.
It automatically "thins" your backups, including when the TM drive/partition gets near full, deleting the oldest backups to make room for new ones.