Advice on backup scheme for FreeBSD 5.3 box

[steve]

I have been using FreeBSD 5.3 now for a couple months on a P4 box at home 
and I have been backing up the box nightly by doing a simple .tgz of the 
/etc, /usr/home and /var directories to a FreeBSD backup server at home (the 
backup server is a PI box). 

I’m at the point now, because I’m using that FreeBSD box to host email for 
myself and some production/development web pages, in case the box fails I 
want to be able to quickly either rebuild the contents of that box’s hard 
drive or move the backup server over to replace it.  It took a few weeks to 
get the P4 box configured the way I want, so I don’t think it’s just a 
simple matter of popping in the 5.3 install disk and re-installing. 

So I’m trying to figure out a scheme to avoid more than a couple hours of 
downtime. 

I should note that in a few weeks I’ll be replacing the current PI backup 
server with a PIII box. 

My home network consists of a linksys router with a couple workstations 
attached and the above mentioned web and backup servers.  The web and backup 
servers do not have cd burners, however I could transfer files to one of the 
workstations to burn backup disks. 

I would like to know in general some approaches I could take to create 
either some redundancy in my network at home with the two FreeBSD servers I 
have (each has different hardware specs) or more effectively back up the 
FreeBSD box doing the email/web hosting for myself.  I would consider myself 
a moderately competent amateur system admin.  I don’t work in the IT 
industry and I have zero knowledge of things like mirroring boxes or using 
applications like rsync so I’m looking for a guidance on a “simple” 
solution. 

Thank you much in advance. 

Steve
www.digitalbluesky.net