Adding HD's and backup scheme for New iMac - advice?

I'm eagerly awaiting the arrival of a new 27" imac with SSD+ 1 TB HD.

I know that this isn't going to be sufficient storage into the future, so I wanted to get some advice about backup strategies and adding hard drives in the future.

For right now, I'm planning on adding a 2 TB drive to act as a time machine back up (Firewire 800), and then having a separate 2 TB HD that I'll transport to and from my work as an off-site back up. This will probably just be USB 2, as I can leave it running overnight and then take it back to work.

I'm not sure whether to have the off-site back up as a bootable backup (using Chronosync or Superduper), or whether to back this up sequentially as well?? Is there any way to have a bootable back up that also has sequential backups??

Once Thunderbolt enclosures become available, I'm planning on adding a separate 2 TB drive to add as a scratch disk for video and photo work. I guess I might need a separate backup drive for this as well if I end up using this disk for storage (which is probably inevitable).

Would like to hear from other people what their strategies or plans are, esp. with integration of thunderbolt (which still isn't available as far as I know for enclosures etc??).

Would you recommend having separate enclosures, or is it worth investing in a hot-swappable docking station? Do people have any recommendations for good docking stations?

Cheers

 

Thanks - I guess as long as you have the system discs, and a clone of your time machine backup, then you should be able to restore your system regardless from the time machine backup right?

The main advantage of the bootable backup is not having to reinstall the operating system if the HD fails, you can simply plug it in and be up and running almost instantly?

Using CCC to clone the time machine drive is a good idea - I hadn't thought of it, up to now I had been switching HD's from the time machine preferences, which does seem to confuse time machine on occasion.

Thanks for the ideas.

 

Ok thanks, so the consensus seems to be:

(1) A time machine back up on site to enable recovery from simple screwups or HD crash

(2) An off-site back up - perhaps just cloned from the main HD once per week using CCC, superduper or Chronosync, which enables recovery of files in a reasonably-up-to-date state in case of theft/fire etc.

(3) Some other scheme for video/music/scratch disk for editing home movies etc. Perhaps a raid set up, with an additional off-site back up drive for this.

Man, this is getting expensive in a hurry!



Thanks everyone!