If I can find a reasolably priced device ($150) to replace the TV computer with then I can take its guts and use it to upgrade my wife’s machine (it’s probably 2x as fast as what she’s using), which is really long in the tooth. That turns off one machine. The only tricky part is that whatever I get needs to be able to handle MPEG4 video natively so I don’t have to worry about my wireless net being a bottleneck.

Next, I get a 200GB drive for my server, so I can mirror more than 60GB. That gives me ~180GB of mirrored storage to play with, plus ~80GB that I could use for other stuff. Then I can change the backup routine on my desktops so that they back up to the server, rather than each other and have them close down when they are done. That gets me pretty close to where I want to be, though I need to figure out something for the photos and stuff that live on the server.

If need be I can get gigabit ethernet to speed up the backups. Then its time to get some big drives so I can rip all my CDs to lossless format…

Drive failures sure do suck, don’t they. Even if you can get the data back (thank you R-studio), reinstalling the OS and everything else is a huge pain in the ass. (Something else my backup scheme could be better at)

As for the rest… Maybe a removeable drive or an external would help?
Multiple backups rule. Wish I had thought of that.

Be seeing you…
Flynn
“What are the odds that this Western Digital could fail? It’s brand new…”