expansion and backup strategy for media drive

[Sam3]

I have a 500GB drive that I use for music, photos and videos, I just filled it up and am looking at different expansion strategies. I have two sets of photos, one in a pictures folder and one in the iPhoto library. Videos also have multiple copies; DVD rips or avi's, and videos that are compressed iTunes/AppleTV/iPod compatible. Which of the following do you think would work best?

- Use an unused 1.5TB WD MyBook as new drive and look for another 1.5 GB drive for backup? (Hard to find 1.5TB externals with Firewire anymore, however.)

- Break apart the media and place iPhoto library and movies that aren't iTunes compatible on one 500GB drive, put all iTunes music and video along with photo folder onto another 500GB drive, put personal video projects onto a third drive. Then use the 1.5TB drive divided into 3 partitions for offsite backup.

- Some other strategy that I haven't thought of?

I have available to me two 500GB drives in OWC Neptune enclosures, one 500GB that is in a Time Capsule unit and the aforementioned 1.5TB WD MyBook drive.

[olnacl]

Personally, I'd go with the 1.5 drive to store your media and another (doesn't have to be FW - USB will be fine for BU once you've done the original copy. You can never have too much media storage (said by a person with 4 TB plus another 4 TB BU).

[jdc]

So if you cant find a 1.5TB drive, then buy a 2TB one.

And I agree, USB 2 is more than enough for backup.

Id use one of the 500 giggers as a bootable backup using CCC.