Backup....All or just some??

[BitterB]

I now have a 500GB external HDD (WD Studio for those who care to know) to backup my 24" white iMac 250GB HDD. I have the WD Anywhere Backup program that came with it set up to backup any files, music, movies, and documents I've created.....pretty much anything in my "home" folder.

My question: does it make any sense to use external HDD space to backup the rest of the HDD, particularly the applications, when I have the install disks for the original config, shelf copies for others, and copies of the .dmg files for those I've downloaded (i.e. MacHeist)??? or is that just a waste of space I could otherwise use to store files I don't care to have on both my iMac HDD and external??

I'm just trying to figure out if there's any real advantage. What do you Mac veterans do??? and why??

 

[FJ218700]

if you are running Leopard, I'd just use Time Machine and back up everything. either way, for the minimal space taken by apps relative to media, IMO it is well worth the time saved versus manually reinstalling every app from the disc should your internal HD fail.