What about just backing up and deleting all previous versions?

Carbon Copy Cloner or SuperDuper.

Both highly respected backup utilities.

I guess I should also mention that utilities such as CCC and SD need to be scheduled if you want them to run on a regular basis.

But if you want stuff backed up as soon as you make changes, but you are only interested in a subset of your system being backed up, you could consider something like a DropBox.com account which would backup any changes to the cloud as soon as you make them to files stored in the DropBox folder.

If you have a 2nd system you want to use as your backup system, you could use something like CrashPlan which will copy your stuff across the network (local or across the internet) to another system you own. The free version runs once a day, but you can manually start a backup anytime, and the paid version allows more frequent scheduling, plus you can also backup to the CrashPlan cloud with the paid version.

These are backup services I've used. There are many more out there.

If you back up every day, replacing the previous backup each time, and you find out that you deleted a file you really need two days ago, what are you going to do?

GBHH wrote:

I just need to have the latest things backed up, I don't care about the past. I need its current state to be backed up. Please advise. Obviously Time Machine can not do such a simple task.

Can anyone tell me about an alternative back up system.

Of course TM just backs up the latest things, things that have been changed.

You're request is confusing, you seem to want to snapshot the system, but how often? As soon as something changes? At the end of the day? At the end of the week?

If you describe what it is you're looking to actually do it will be easier to answer the question.

regards