Rotate backups with single external FW drive?

[Tartaglia]

I am new to SD and was going through the manual to see if it is right for me.

I have a need to back up about 250MB of key files from my mac.

I have an external 80GB FW drive connected.

I can figure out how to get SD to backup the key files (it takes about 6 minutes for Smart back up which seems long) every night at 11pm using the scheduler, all 4 weeks of the month.

What I am trying to figure out is how I can create rotating backups using the single external drive. I need this so that if my critical files become corrupt I can retore them from 2, 3,4 etc. days before.

Ideally I would like of SD could create backups like the following on the same drive

-BackupofFiles_1stMonday
-BackupofFiles_1stTuesday
-BackupofFiles_1stWednesday
-BackupofFiles_1stThursday
-BackupofFiles_1stFriday
-BackupofFiles_1stSaturday
-BackupofFiles_2ndMonday
-BackupofFiles_2ndTuesday
-BackupofFiles_2ndWednesday
...etc.

I know this is not as good as using different drives, but I can't afford 12 drives, not to mention having to swap them out every day.


Any assistance or suggestions are welcome.

[dnanian]

Well, you can either create a number of images (one for each backup) or create a number of destination partitions. Then, schedule each as appropriate...

[Tartaglia]

Can you provide steps to be taken to implement these approaches? An explanation of which is what I was having trouble finding in the manual. Is there a preferred approach out of the two?

Thanks again, once I am sure I can do this I will LOVE SD.

[dnanian]

In general, I always prefer partitions if you can do it. You'll want to make sure you have enough space to back up, with some slack for working space.

There's no real trick -- just partition as appropriate, set up the backup and click "Schedule". Set the times as you want.

Repeat for the other desired schedules...