Formatting external HDD

[Lisi <lisi.reisz@gmail.com>]

I have just acquired a one T HDD for use as an external HDD.  I now need to 
decide how to partition it.  I am intending to use it for backup purposes, 
and have bought what seems ot me ot be a very large disk so that things can 
be added or grow.

I want flexibility, but am not well enough informed to use an LVM.  Moreover, 
I understand that with new HDDs one has to worry about partition boundaries, 
and again, I am not well enough informed to be able to achieve this, and 
anyhow I don't know how big the partitions will need to be, nor even what 
partitions I shall need.

Would it be feasible ot have one large partition on the drive, and then use 
directories rather than partitions for the different back-ups?  Could I do 
this with cp (obviously), dd, rsync, Clonezilla, or even something I don't 
know about yet?  Would this be a reasonable plan?

And what filing system?  I am currently using ext 3, but ma about to reinstall 
and may well use ext 4, if it is available for Lenny.  

My box is ill, possibly unto death.  I want to change things one at a time, so 
that I can see what wrought the change, if change there be.  I have a new IDE 
HDD (I don't think that my motherboard can boot form SATA or usb).  So that 
will be the first change.  Though I may go mad and change the CMOS battery 
while I am in there, thus changing two things at the same time.

Thanks,
Lisi