Help me work out what home setup I need ...

LE3

Can you help me figure out what i really need in terms of computing at home?
I currently have a laptop, a tablet and a desktop pc (Ethernet to wifi hub) which connects to the printer, scanner etc. My desktop is ready for upgrade/replacement but i was thinking the other day that as i live on my own 3 computers is probably overkill!
I have always used the desktop as my "master", using it as the hub of the "network" to allow printing etc and transferring copies of files onto the laptop as needed. I am always wary of having everything on a laptop - you only need one drop or loss to lose everything! (I do backup the important stuff onto an external hdd too)

Would I be better keeping the existing setup of pc, laptop & tablet?
Or maybe just keep the laptop & tablet and invest the desktop replacement cash into a significant amount of cloud storage & another external hard drive for backups?
Or is there some other option that I haven't thought of?

Could I set up a device that would still run the printer or would I need to plug it into the laptop each time I needed to use it (its not a wireless printer, and I probably don't want to replace it just yet)

What would be the pros & cons of each approach?

JJ_Egan

Personal cloud storage via a NAS device like
Western Digital My Book Live .

jje

bengalknights

A Network storage device attached to your router with sync to all devices setup should be the easiest and most manageable setup you can have.

LE3

Thank you - I knew there was something but I'd forgotten what it was called - looks just the thing. Thanks!

closed

the more places you have data the better from a backup point of view, so if you have space, the laptop disk could also be used to backup the desktop data, as can dvd's. See the speedup sticky if you want to reinvigorate the desktop.

buglawton

Do you already have a wireless printer? Once I got a wireless printer/scanner I found, no need to have a PC type hub left switched on to access these. Printing can be done direct from a tablet also. Very convenient!

esuhl

I'd be just a little wary about trusting data to a cloud provider. Great idea if you don't have any sensitive data (or can encrypt it before sending it to the cloud) and if you are using it as a second backup, but I wouldn't rely on it as the only backup I had...

DVDs are fiddly, slow, not high capacity and degrade. I think hard drives will be easier and more reliable for long-term backups...

As for the printer, I used an old small-form-factor PC (an old PIII) as a wireless print server. Alternatively you can buy a prebuilt wireless print server. And some routers have a print server built in (you plug the printer into the USB socket on the router).