2month mac newbie here.
For my backups I utilized an external hard drive with 2 partitions (you can partition on "disk utility" applications).
After erasing the previous format I reformatted my external to "mac osx extended journal" (Hfs+ journaled) utilizing "disk utility" application.
On the first partition I utilized "carbon copy cloner" (a free program) which makes a clone of my mac. This backup is BOOTABLE...meaning i don't have to reinstall the operating system. If my internal hard drive fails I just simply connect the external drive to the mac and boot from the external (when turning on the computer, simply press on the option key and the screen will give you a choice of which drive to boot from)...and voila everything like before (when I last saved it) but running from the external. Hardly any hassle. The carbon copy cloner is really straight forward to use.
On the second partition I added "time machine" which makes backups constantly but is NOT bootable. This is my archive backup and I use it to restore deleted files or such. But in case of a massive failure not the backup I will go to since it is not bootable.
Hope this helps. I was also confused and proceeded with much tredpidation when strateging my backup. But it is really a no big deal once you do it.
Hope this helps and Good luck
Alex
p.s.-if you also want to use a windows based computer you have to format the partition or the drive in NTFS or Fat32. You can't modify NTFS from mac (only read) but with Fat32 you can do everything in any operating platform, but it is limited to 4GB files.
