Backup Strategy

I am not sure where to post this, I hope this is the right place.
I have a new Macpro, awesome. I got 3mb of ram and the 2.66 processors.
I ordered a 500GB main drive. I also just got a 500GB second drive.

My most demanding and data intensive activity is photography. Right now I have a external 500 GB hard drive from my old PC with about 250mb of photos on it.

I also have a new 500GB external hard drive. They are both USB 2.0.

I want to use my old PC as a server, it will be placed remotely out of the way.

To summarize, Macpro with two 500MB internal hard drives and two external 500 MB hard drives.

My thought is to use the PC as a server with the two external hard drives as archives.
I would load from cards to the second Mac internal hard drive until I reached a natural break. For example the end of football season. Then archive the football photos to the external drives on the PC.

My fear is to loose thousands of photos and other data.

What is the best backup strategy? The combinations are endless.
I of course want a strategy that is automatic so I can’t screw it up.

Hi Bill,

I am also a new Macpro user and photographer. From the research I have done, my plan of attaack is to use all 4 drive bays on the Mac Pro. The 4th drive is going to be a 750 gig and its going to be Archive Drive. All images are going to archived on this drive. As this drive fills up. The oldest images will be transfered and stored on an external drive, which will be kept in a safe.

Drive 3 will be the working drive. Images will be transferred from the CF card and processed on this drive. At the time of the transfer I also make a copy of the raw files to an external hard drive.

Drive 2 will be my data drive with misc other data stored.

Drive 1 will be my OS & applications.

I am considering using DROBO to keep a constant backup of my working drive. I haven't decided on this one yet.

Drive 2 & 4 will be backed up overnight to an external drive.

Kevin