THAT's thinking effective low-tech.

(Works with wives, too.)

I cannot vouch for that, but you do like to live dangerously, don't you?

Late to the party, but I would recommend a few things for the OP.

I use SyncBack (free version) to keep my files backed up to my home NAS. I have it scheduled to run on Sunday mornings (when I'm usually home and laptop is on the dock). The nice thing is, it does a file comparison before it starts the upload, so that it doesn't waste bandwidth replacing things that haven't changed. You can also select which folders you want to sync. Theoretically, I could also run this over a VPN connection, but I don't like to waste the bandwidth/time and weekly backups are enough for me.

The second thing I would recommend is setting up a VPN to your home. That's the best (and safest) way to maintain connectivity to your network and files at home. Depending on your router, it may have VPN services builtin...if not, you could buy one that supports VPN, or see if you can rip DD-WRT or tomato to your router (which has VPN support).

Total investment for above: $0

If you go with Dropbox, Google Drive, etc., make sure you review their privacy policies. If you have an expectation of privacy, it will probably scare you off.

I just wanted to let everyone know how much I appreciate the advice and suggestions. Clearly this is something that many people grapple with, and there's no one-size-fits-all solution. I did go ahead and order the PogoPlug Office and I'm going to play around with some of the other suggestions, too.

I would also check out the File Transporter from Connected Data. I think it is a good combo of your own hardware and a roll-your-own cloud in one.

MyBook Live works well for me(personal use). I haven't done syncing yet but I was able to save files(photos) to the drive, stream videos and music, etc.. It is directly connected to my router. Can be access on phone or laptop. See user manual to get better understanding: http://www.wdc.com/wdproducts/librar...779-705058.pdf
If you're interesting in the drive Staples has it on sale for Black Friday. $110 for 2tb and $130 for 3tb(I think, check the AD).

For laptops have you looked at the surface tablet? Not the surface rt.

Pretty hard imagining going from a 15" screen down to a 10", and the keyboards on them are only "OK" by the standards of tablets with removable keyboards.

Decent processor in them, though; ULV i5 of either generation is going to be not far off in performance from the current i5 she has.

What about cloud storage that *doesnt* do syncing?

I want to put like 1 TB of data out in the cloud, but I dont (and cant) have it sync'd to my devices, simply because I dont have the drive space on any of them to make it work.

I'm thinking simply like when I'm in the office. There's a drive letter assigned to a public share.

But, instead of this being work-related where I can use a public share, this is personal. So - using the offices resources is sort of out of the question.

That looks like quite a machine especially the display! I was unable to find a price. How much will one set me back?

Most of the syncable cloud services let you choose what to sync to/from a given machine (or nothing, with just web-based access.)

Prices are here: http://www.dell.com/us/business/p/pr...workstation/fs

My configuration (256gb mSATA card SSD + 500gb HDD) requires phoning them if you don't have a corporate account; I'm not sure why they no longer offer build-to-order on the public web site for a lot of their systems.

Mine would have been about $2650 on the public web site (with warranty extended to 3 years and 3 years of accidental damage protection.) I didn't pay quite that much with corporate account discount (on my credit card, though; it's a personal machine), although the savings weren't huge on a machine that new (if my employer starts ordering them in numbers, I'm sure it will get better.)

If you don't use Autocad or some similar application that needs the ISV-certified video drivers (and if you don't know what ISV certified video drivers are, you don't need them) or the higher OpenGL support, the new XPS 15 Touch is essentially the same machine with the video card tuned for gaming (higher clock speed, and some of the professional features disabled), and it's very slightly cheaper.

The for someone comfortable swapping in their own SSD (or swapping an SSD for the mSATA 32gb cache card) the $1899 config is a really good, cost effective starting point.

http://www.dell.com/us/p/xps-15-9530...id=xps-15-9530

Current estimated ship date on mine is the 11th.