I've been using Apple's .Mac Backup since it came out, and although it is a tad slow, it has been usable. Until recently. Now, it's insisting on spitting out disks halfway through the burn, suggesting there's something wrong. I can burn disks just fine using Toast or the Finder, so the drive and media are OK. .Mac Backup does take a LONG time to back stuff up (especially to CD or DVD) - there is the initial "how big is the backup" scan stage, followed by the "OK - really backing up now. let's list all of the files" scan stage. Followed by the "OK - I've got the file list, let's start copying them over to the disk image" stage, followed by "OK - files are copied. I'm actually going to burn a backup now" stage. Followed (finally, if it gets this far) by the "Let's verify the backup" stage. Takes for freaking ever. When it works at all.
So, I'm looking for options. I had been using a hand-rolled script in Terminal to copy a set of files over (ala rsync) to the disk image for the blank CD or DVD. That works, but I'd rather not have to maintain a script by hand.
What do people use? Do I have to shell out for Retrospect or something similar? Carbon Copy Cloner seems to want to just clone entire drives, so that's out... Anything else useful and reliable (and hopefully cheap/free)?