After a full new reinstall on my Mac Book Pro (first gen), I decided to create multiple partitions and take on backing up my data. Fortunately, Mac OS provides a ton of good backup tools: iBackup and SuperDuper!.

The former (iBackup), is great for the casual backup: it backs up all settings and data from applications. Restoring is very easy and convenient. I had my MBP up and running in no time using this tool. I don't like that I am not able to easily create bootable disk images using this tool.

For creating (bootable) disk images I discovered that Super Duper! works great. I am seriously considering to shell out the necessary $$$ to use this program. Especially for trying out drivers and updates it has a great solution: sandbox images. I suggest you try both of these apps, because making a backup never has been easier: all you need is a place to store your data.

The 100GB 4200RPM harddisk (G in gibi, not giga) in my MBP is now partitioned into 3 partitions: 1 boot OS X, 1 data and 1 bootcamp (winxp). The latter still has to be installed though, as I haven't got a slipstreamed SP2 Windows XP disk around. For backup purposes I use an external USB2 drive (320GB, 7200RPM), and that works great. It is fast, easy and very convenient to add my other drives in cases of transferring large amounts of data.

Though I love my Mac Book Pro, I wish I could enlarge the harddisk and make it speedier: 120GB or 160GB spinning at 7200RPM would be very, very welcome. Unfortunately the current offerings in these sizes are available in 5400RPM only.