Are you looking for selective sync, and just over the LAN or over the internet too?

If just LAN, there’s many Windows sync tools for this with varying levels of complexity and capability. Even just a simple batch file with a copy command.

I’ll often just setup a Robocopy job for something that’s a regular sync.

If you open files over a network connection, they stay remote and remain remote when you save. Though this isn’t best practice (Windows and apps are known for having hiccups with remotely opened files).

Two other approaches:

1. ResilioSync enables selective sync. If you change a file you’ve synchronized locally, the changed file will sync back to the source.

2. Mesh network such as Wireguard, Tailscale, Hamachi. Each enables you to maintain an encrypted connection between your devices that the system sees as a LAN (with encryption). If you’re only using Windows, I’d recommend starting with Hamachi, it’s easier to get started. If mobile device support is needed, use Wireguard or Tailscale (Tailscale uses Wireguard, but easier to setup).

More seriously, why not run a real OS on it. Windows/Linux?

Android no longer shows a real advantage these days. Laptops now run all day with real use, touch screens are available, etc.

Cloud can be surprisingly cost effective, as part of a 3-2-1 backup.

Check out storj.io

If it’s powered off, you’ll have no idea when it dies. And they do die just sitting there.

I’ve actually had more failures of drives sitting around than ones running constantly.

Custom ROM support is part of my phone selection requirements. I start with the Lineage Supported Devices page.

Just that you don’t need a beast of a machine (with it’s higher cost and power consumption) to just serve files at reasonable performance. If you want to stream video, you’ll need greater performance.

For example, my NAS is ten years old, runs on ARM, with maybe 2gigs of ram. It supposedly can host services and stream video. It can’t. But it’s power draw is about 4 watts at idle.

My newer (5 year old) small form factor desktop has a multi-core Intel cpu, true gigabit network card, a decent video card, with an idle draw of under 12 watts, and peaks at 200w when I’m converting video. It can easily stream videos.

My gaming desktop draws 200w at idle.

My SFF and gaming rig are both overkill for simple file sharing, and both cost 2x to 4x more than the NAS (bought the NAS and SFF second hand). But the NAS can’t really stream video.

Power draw is a massive factor these days, as these devices run 24/7.

RPi is great for it’s incredibly low power draw. The negative of RPi is you still need enclosure, and you’ll have drives that draw power attached to it. In my experience once I’ve built a NAS, RPi doesn’t draw significantly less than my SFF with the same drives installed, as it seems the drives are the greatest consumer. As I mentioned, my SFF with 1TB of storage draws 12 watts, and RPi will draw upwards of 8 watts on its own (my Pi Zero draws 2, but I’d never use it for a NAS). It’s all so close that for me the downside of RPi isn’t worth the difference in power.

You can disable any app using ADB. See here to disable messages.

Though this is a reason I run AOSP (Lineage, Graphene) and root my phones. I keep SMS apps disabled (in the US we have stupid emergency alerts that are never relevant to me that come through the SMS system.)

Wow, neat approach.

I don’t update unless I’m bored

Hahahaha, one of my kind!

My upgrades usually occur because I’m setting up a new system anyway, that way my effort is building for tomorrow in addition to the upgrades, and I get testing time to ensure changeover is pretty smooth.

As I said “how to reproduce this in a home setup”.

I’m running multiple machines, paid little for all of them, and they all run at pretty low power. I replicate stuff on a schedule, I and have a cloud backup I verify quarterly.

If OP is thinking about how to ensure uptime (however they define it) and prevent downtime due to upgrades, then looking at how Enterprise does things (the people who use research into this very subject performed by universities and organizations like Microsoft and Google), would be useful.

Nowhere did I tell OP to do things this way, and I’d thank you to not make strawmen of my words.

In the business world it’s pretty common to do staged or switchover upgrades: test new version in a lab environment, iron out the install/config details. Then upgrade a single production server and do a test with a small group of users. Or, build new servers with the new stuff, have a set of users run on it for a while, in this way you can always just move those users back to a known good server.

How do you do this at home? VMs for lots of stuff, or duplicate hardware for NAS type stuff (I’ve read of running TrueNAS in a VM).

To borrow from the preparedness community: if you have 1 you have none, if you have 2 you have 1. As an example, the business world often runs mission-critical systems in a redundant setup in regionally-different data centers, so a storm won’t take them down. The question is how to reproduce this idea in a home lab environment.

Also have a backup plan.

Consider how the NAS will be used. Is it just file storage, or will you want to stream from it?

If just file storage, you can use lighter hardware.

I’m running a 5 year old Dell Small Form Factor desktop as my NAS/media server. It’s power draw is under 12 watts unless I’m converting files. There’s room for 3 data drives (boot drive is M2). It has no problem streaming, unlike my consumer NAS. And it cost way less.

Not unless you’re already bootloader unlocked, which requires a factory reset to do so. I haven’t done it in forever, as TWRP support for my previous phones fell off. I do believe it works for Pixel though.

The best you can do is try to backup apps using ADB (which is hit and miss, and restoring is very hit and miss).

My current approach is to root first, install Neobackup, and use it for app Backups. If you switch to Graphene, know that they very much dislike root, which is why I’m currently running DivestOS and will be switching to Lineage on next reset.

I want buttons all the way around the screen. They could be capacitive, or part of the screen. Something I can program, like the Blackberry and Treo had. The home screen idea sucks, why can’t I have programmable buttons in the 21st century?

3? You’ve been playing THREE games? How? Where do you find the time!?

Generally I’d agree, but in this case they have excess staffing because they merged projects.

Often this is in middle management.

Yea, I’m a cheap bastard. I’d rather have 2 or 3 of the same phone a couple years old than 1 newer one for the same price. Then I can test or have a hot spare when I inevitably screw something up. 😲

That’s my strategy too, and after decades in IT I have the experience to prove it.

Yes, there are positive reasons for updates, but I’ve rarely seen unaltered systems break, never hacked (because security is a layered thing). I’ve seen many, many, systems taken down by updates, even after extensive lab testing. Nothing like being on an outage call for 17 hours because an update screwed the pooch on 5,000 machines.

Also, move that phone to Lineage, you won’t regret it. Better battery life out of the gate. Hell, buy another 4a or 5, install Lineage, setup her stuff on it, and simply swap it out.

Yep, many false positives while only blocking 1.5% of all malicious apps, plus installing Play Protect on phones to “block malware” from the Play Store.

It’s like someone wrote a comedy based on the worst way to prevent malicious app installs.

Which begs the question, what’s the real purpose of Play Protect? Protect your FROM Play Store installations? 😁

(Yea, that 1.5% is a totally made up number, it’s as real as Google’s malware prevention and the protection provided by Play Protect).