What would you do about Storage and back up in my situation?

[chewbaccacabra]

I have the original 07 2.8 24" iMac and starting to regret not ordering the the 1 TB HD as a BTO. I opted for the 500 GB at the time. Since then I have gotten married and the wife uses an account on here because she likes the bigger screen over her 2.0 AL MacBook.

So now with handbraking DVDs, photos, iTunes, her junk, I am bumping up against the wall. I have everything Time Machined to a WD Mybook HD.

The wife would flip if I went and bought a new Mac, although selling my Rev B Air and the iMac to pay for some or even most of it could be swung. And I really like having my Air when I need it. Apple gave me a new one when my Rev A's sound fried.

I saw the AL iMac HD replacement instructions and while I feel pretty confident in doing work on the laptops (I even have a 500 GB drive to install in in my wife's MacBook which I will do when Snow Leopard hits) I am scared to take the glass off the iMac and and risk the dust between the glass and LCD.

The next option I have thought about is of course ANOTHER external HD to store iTunes movies and music. But then we get into how to back THAT drive up. Obviously with that much media on there it would need to be backed up. Now I thought about a DROBO because that would provide storage and back up in one nice box. Of course that gets pricy.

So my question is what would you do?

TIA

 

[scienide09]

If you're handbraking your own DVDs, you already have a backup -- the disc and the file you created. Do you really need multiple backup copies? I mean, I understand the redundancy factor, but to take it to the extreme, you should then backup your backup, ad infinitum.

If you're not in the market to purchase new hardware, you decide: do you really need all those files on your HD? You can burn a DVD with photos to free some space, as well as archive some of your older material.