You wouldn't need a server to get the stuff online. On Windows you would map an FTP location. You can then either:

Create a folder on there and 'make it always available offline' then save your data in that folder.

Use backup to automatically create backups of your computer/files to that location.

You can set the intervals for backups and the time which they will be carried out. If your computer is asleep or hibernated then it will wake up to do the backup. If your laptop isn't plugged in then it wont backup. It's a neat system and would work in exactly the same way if you were to use a NAS.

Another option is to have a server and back your files up onto that server from all your other machines, and then backup disk images from that server to somewhere offsite, if you wanted to get a bit more complex!

[Edited on 30-08-2010 by ed]

So to get the stuff online automatically im really going to need a little server rather than a regular NAS then.

I was thinking online would be better since I'm protected against disk failure as well as the box itself getting stolen/fire/whatever with all my clients photos on. Being able to access the data from elsewhere would be an added bonus.

I'll have to look into these FTP services.....

I did think about storing drives elsewhere but the cost of an online service would be cheaper than buying a couple of drives and then finding somewhere secure to put them I reckon.

Another good option would be to get a couple of external hard drives and store at a seperate location instead.

If you have a NAS with a suitable RAID array then you've got multiple backups because your data will be stored on more than one hard disk, protecting you from a disk failure. There are services that will give you online storage via FTP, you can use the built in features of Windows or OSX to create scheduled backups to whatever you choose to use. Another option would be to get yourself a VPS which you can use to host your website on and store your data on. I wouldn't be too keen on using a normal web hosting package for this...

[Edited on 30-08-2010 by ed]

I want to back them up online as well as leaving a copy on the NAS - double redundancy sort of thing. Being able to access them from elsewhere would be handy but not needed. I only say dropbox as I already have an account them them.

Are you saying you want to just backup your files or are trying to access to them over the internet?

Had a quick look at drop box and anything in the "My Dropbox" folder gets synced.

Use robocopy to backup the files to this folder.

Rather than using a NAS box, have you thought about a Windows Server or Ubuntu server running RAID 5 or RAID 10 depending on your budget. That way you have more control over online backups.

Drop box is great but starts to cost once you backup more than 2GB.

[Edited on 29-08-2010 by Andrew]

Take it your using a MAC

Hmm, pretty sure you can't....

If dropbox can be mounted as a virtual drive or whatever it's called (i.e. give it a drive letter) then you can use the command above but change the drive paths obviously.

But that means manually choosing what I want copying right?

I was hoping I could set up some kind of scheduled job to say 'at midnight copy folderxxx to dropbox' or whatever.....

Best thing is a client push, from the computer.

Then you can pop up a confirm box on computer giving details of what went over.

Robocopy is you best bet called from batch file.

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=9d467a69-57ff-4ae7-96ee-b18c4790cffd&displaylang=en

Batch

Robocopy c:\pics \\nasdrive\backups /s /r:0 /w:0



[Edited on 29-08-2010 by Ian]

In my new place I'm going to be setting up a small product photo studio and want to make sure all my photography is automatically backed up online.

I've never had a NAS box and it would seem like the obvious solution so I can access all data across my laptop/editing PC/iPad but I'd want any data saved to specific folders auto-uploaded overnight.

Is this a standard feature of off-the-shelf boxes?

[Edited on 29-08-2010 by AndyKent]