Heres something else you have to think about also. Do you need all 1TB of data with you at all times? Or do you just need access to some of it? Also, access to it and back of it are to separate issues. If you want it backed up, you may have to settle for it not being readily accessible.

As for the sync, I would say see if you can create a folder hierarchy where you have your stuff to sync (price lists, customer data, website information (passwords, paths, etc), etc), and stuff that doesn’t need syncing (web files, media (videos, pictures, etc). The stuff that doesn’t need syncing doesn’t necessarily mean that it will be inaccessible though. If you set up a DDNS on your router using dyndns.org, then you can have RDP access where ever you have access. You can also use ultravnc (uvnc.com) which includes a file transfer so you can access your files and transfer them to yoru local system (compared to redirecting your local drives through rdp, which considerably slows the rdp down).

Lets talk! remote support is one of my strong suits

It all depends on what you are using to start. Laptop is a little harder but I have found a pretty easy solution, desktop is quite a bit easier.

Let start with desktop. Raid 5 is definitely the best way to go for data integrity with a couple of exceptions. Raid 5 is striped with parity. You can lose a hard drive and not even blink an eye. We have found that the best setup is dual scsi raid cards with 5 drives in raid 5. The reason is if 2 drives die, you can still run, and the chances of 2 drives dieing at once is rare, but not unheard of. The dual raid cards are for the same reason. chances are both your raid card aren’t going to die at once. We use this on our servers in conjunction with a tape library backup as a just in case precaution. With this way, you can use something like hamachi or some sort of vpn to create access to where ever you are. Won’t take that much to setup (I could walk you through it in about 10 minutes over the phone) but it also does limit where your data is.

So as for the laptop, one thing you could try is setting the windows 7 backup to backup to a network drive. You buy a NAS, and it backs up your system every night at like 2am. With the size of HHDs nowadays it should break the bank to get a NAS with 2x2TB drives in a mirror. That way, you have 2 hard drives with potential multiple copies of your system, as well as your system itself. Windows 7 has a pretty nice integrated backup system that allows you to backup to network storage.

Another alternative that you could look into is getting a web hosting company with a boat load of disk storage space and do an automated ftp backup of your system. Again this would take a long time so you might want to do this at 2 in the morning.

And the last is to do the separate file server and have it backup to a remote ftp site. that way you have access to very recent files (not real-time unfortunately) via ftp, you could access them real-time via vpn, and you have your data backed up both on your system, your fileserver and a remote system. probably the best you can do with out going all out and spending boat loads of money on a backup syncing system.

Cheers

As always, you captured some amazing moments, and perfect expressions, thank you!!!