I would like to be able to tell it to back up once a day or once a week.
Then, still keeping it simple tell it to back up iTunes, iPhoto and “My Documents” and leave everything else alone...OR...do the full Monty once a day or week...
I can do that on LaCie’s back up software...maybe I’ll go back to it...
Time Machine IS REAL EASY tho, set it and forget it, but I don’t like having an entire 500 gig external HD used for this purpose.
G
Time Machine allows you to specify the frequency of backups, so you’re set there.
Also, no one’s forcing you to use a 500 GB drive exclusively for Time Machine. They DO sell lower-capacity drives... or, why not just partition the external drive into a 100GB partition for Time Machine, and a 400GB partition for storing files?
Partition the drive.
I would like to be able to tell it to back up once a day or once a week.
As for the backing up on a limited schedule... that defeats the purpose of Time Machine. Let it do the entire backup and then after that it only backs up stuff that is changed... you don't do an entire backup all at once after the first time.
A 750 gig external drive can be had for $224.00 at Costco, so what is the beef? Probably cheaper than a software package and drive that you are currently using. Get used to the idea of having Terabytes of data, which will require lots of storage for backups. Next big item for homes is a large sever that runs seamlessly and entirely unnoticed by the home user.
Check out SuperDuper! by Shirt Pocket Software. An outstanding backup program that lets you “clone” your system into a bootable drive. After the first backup, it can be set to only backup changed files.