Time Machine production workflow

[adamzx3]

This is kind of a 2 part question, is this the most efficient way to backup and is this the best way to organize my files...I am starting to create quite an archive and need to get it under control before its unmanageable.

I have started using time machine to backup (used backup3 before) and noticed pretty quickly that my TM drive was shrinking at a rapid rate. Example...working with a 230mb .psd saving several times made time machine make backup that document every hour, so I would end up having a 2GB backup at the end of the day times several days made a problem. The best way I can figure out is to have a folder called WIP (work in progress) and at the end of production move the copy to my archive and then open TM and naviagte to WIP, and "delete all backups" of that file. The original and edited file are located in my archive folder and will be backed up the next hour. I like that TM gives me the option of going back an hour and recover my file if something bad happened.

So is there a better way to manage my backup bloat?

Also here is my file system setup:

250gb [Macintosh HD] Boot drive and 40gb XP partition
250gb [Time Machine] Backup drive (will replace with a 1TB later)
500gb [Storage HD] Stores files as listed below

Storage HD hierarchy

Creative_Files>Archive>Tri_County_Tool>11-18-07>logo.ai
_____________ Photography
_____________Promotional
_____________Referance
_____________Websites
Aperture_Library>

And is it necessary to make a aperture backup with time machine? or should I have TM not back it up and manually backup via Apertures vault?

Hopefully ZFS will be implemented into time machine before 10.6 so it can backup on the block (or bit?) level rather than save the whole file again.

[AlexisV]

Even the largest hard drive will fill up eventually, but you should be able to get a fair few months of backups on a 500Gb hard drive. Will you really need to go back and recover something you did 12 months ago if you physically backup completed work?

The setup I've got is:

250Gb hard drive. All work in one folder (currently 30Gb full)

80Gb Time Machine external drive. Only the work folder is backed up (currently 40Gb full)

120Gb Archive external drive. Every finished piece of work is backed up into 4.3Gb folders. When a folder is full, a physical DVD is burnt and stored for backup.