Older iMac + Macbook Air. Server/Cloud/Backup solutions?

[monkora]

I've got a question. I've got the following macs and HDs.

A mid 2013 Macbook Air w/ 500gb SSD and 8gb ram which I use most of the time.

A late 2009 21.5 inch iMac w/ 1tb HD and 4gb ram without the ability to be used as external monitor.

2 x 1 tb external HDs.

I mainly use computers for writing but also editing video and photos occasionally. I've got all my photos and a bunch of my video on my old iMac since it has a bigger HD, and that's all backed up on to an external HD also.
I would like to be able to use my big iMac to do writing and a few other things on since I like the big screen and it's at eye level. So I want a way to sync my writing files between the computers. I find my macbook air is actually a lot faster at rendering videos and things, so I would like to continue doing that on the Air (I would love it if I could plug this into the display, but oh well), while keeping the space hungry files I'm not using somewhere else.

My current thought process is to use OS X Server to setup a server on the old iMac with all my videos photos etc on it and also to back up my Air to using Time Machine and THEN have the server backup to the harddrives, which I can rotate out so that most of my data is in 3 separate locations.

I would also use the server as a client and have google drive or similar on it so that my writing files are constantly synced between them, and are being backed up to the cloud even when I'm away from my home network.
Is that an overly convoluted system?

Thanks you for reading

 

[JenPoMas]

Using ChronoSync as a backup/syncing solution

Check out Econ Technologies' ChronoSync:
http://www.econtechnologies.com/chronosync/overview.html

They claim that if the drive can be mounted, it can be synced or backup up to. It also has some sophisticated scheduling options available, if that's important to you.

It's worth a look. Fortunately there is a 30+ day trial period you can take advantage of:
http://www.econtechnologies.com/support/trial-key.php

 

[monkora]

Hi, I've used this before and it works really well for creating a bootable backup. I figure it is probably simpler to use time machine if I am considering making a server though?

 

[JenPoMas]

I've used Time Machine very little so I can't really speak about it confidently. I do know, though, that ChronoSync can create bootable backups of OSX Server.