My first Apple computer was a Performa 550 
I think it was 1995. I didn’t start backing up my computers until ten years later. Macs were just reliable and never found the need for it. I still don’t run any virus software ( I will decuss that later.)
As I have grown older and less of a rebel, I got that “you never know” feeling and started my backups. I have all my photos of the kids on my Mac and would just hate it if they were gone for good. And God forbid, an indoor football sends your iMac over the edge. Today Lepard makes it even easier backup using Time Machine. All you need is an external hard drive plugged into your Mac and let it roll.
After you plug in your new external drive, et up your Time Machine preferences located in the System Preferences Pane. Turn the slide bar to on. If you check the box “show time machine status in the menu bar it will give you easy access to your backups.
Look for a hard drive with at the very least the same amount of space as your Mac. The bigger the drive the further back in time you can go. USB drives can be a bit slow so if you have a Firewire 400 port or even better a Firewire 800 port on your Mac then get a Firewire drive. This will make for faster backups. Note that your first backup will seem like forever.
My favorite drives are NewerTechs MiniStacks. I like the look, the different capacities and the ability to use it as a startup drive if necessary. If you need a new wireless base station then backing up over Apple’s new Time Capsule is great.
Posted by Robin 