New mac owner , have few question

[dnanian]

Wally007:

We're really designed to make backups onto external hard disks -- for exactly the reasons you specify: it's trivial to restore in the event of a problem, because you just plug in your FireWire drive, and boom -- you can restore from it.

We don't allow you to store an image on the same drive as you're backing up (kind of a "hall of mirrors" thing), so you really would need something to back up to.

You would be able to store an image on a network drive (see the "How do I update an image?" FAQ entry), but that would require some work when restore time came (see section 5 of the user's guide).

So, I guess I'd really suggest investing in an external FireWire drive. You can get a good LaCie, OWC or WiebeTech drive for less than $200, and it's worth every penny.

Hope that helps.