Backup Recommendations

What are your recommendations to back up? Without going into Darwin. Simple is better. And what folders do you recommend to backup. I have 5 Gig used and that will not fit on one CD.

I would certainly back up my home-directory, but perhaps not the ~/Applications folder (if you have one). ~/Documents, ~/Library (for settings, e-mails and so on), ~/Pictures etc. Maybe some of the scripts in /Library/Scripts (if you have created some), or the Apache folder /Library/Webserver (if you have Apache up and running), or some of the apps in /Applications. If you have OS 9 on the same partition I would backup what you have installed. The rest will pretty much be re-installed. But again, it depends on what you want to save.

Thanks. Have you used Retrospect? Is it any good on OS X?

No, sorry, I've never used Retrospect. I back-up the 'old way' to a cd with my cd-burner.

i do it the fast way on my external firewire hard drive

I would say your needs don't require retrospect. Try Deja Vu or RsyncX or Impression. They're cheap and easy to use. External FW is the easiest and most effective.

As far as what to back up. Kris hit the nail on the head.. Home Dir, Webserver and Scripts. There may be other scattered items in other locations but I usually save a copy in my home dir for safe keeping.

Deja Vu works fine for me, plus it makes bootable copies.