I want to create my own "cloud" storage, advice?

[chrlswltrs]

I want to buy a 1TB external hard drive and have my files accessible from anywhere. I would like to be able to connect it directly to my router so that I don't have to have it connected to a running computer all the time. I will eventually get 2 of them and have them identical, just in case something ever happens to one of them.

Here are my goals:
1. Access to my files from any device (phone, tablet, PC, etc) as long as I have an internet connection.
2. Encryption of the drive

That's about it.

Here are my questions:
1. Is there a particular drive I should be looking at, or certain features that aren't necessarily included in every external hard drive?
2. Is there any software I need to set everything up?
3. What is the best way to encrypt the drive?
4. Are there good drives with WiFi built in so that all it would need is power?

I have Windows 7, Windows 8, Chromium, Android, and iOS devices available as far as what I can use to set it up. Is there anything else I'm missing? I know there are some people here that are geniuses with this kind of thing so hopefully the right people can help me out here. TYIA

 

[lunatic59]

You could go through all the configuring and tweaking and expense to set it up yourself, or you could take the easy way and get yourself a NAS appliance like the Iomega ix2-2T.

It's a clever little device (I've got 2) and while I don't use the personal cloud feature, everything else does just what I ask it to. You can either set them as independent volumes for 2 TB capacity or a RAID1 Array (which is how I use mine) with 1 TB redundancy.

Anyway, the link I found on Amazon has it for pretty cheap considering I paid ~$300 for mine.

 

[chrlswltrs]

You could go through all the configuring and tweaking and expense to set it up yourself, or you could take the easy way and get yourself a NAS appliance like the Iomega ix2-2T.

It's a clever little device (I've got 2) and while I don't use the personal cloud feature, everything else does just what I ask it to. You can either set them as independent volumes for 2 TB capacity or a RAID1 Array (which is how I use mine) with 1 TB redundancy.

Anyway, the link I found on Amazon has it for pretty cheap considering I paid ~$300 for mine.

I'll keep that in mind. I don't mind spending that much or a little more, but I would really prefer 2 separate devices for redundancy and I would like at least one of them to be physically small.

 

[IOWA]

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