If you read the first and second parts of this article, you already know the office and how do I organize and distribute media across my devices. Now, for the last part I’ll cover the network infrastructure and backup solutions.
First of all, I have 2 networks at home: one for the house and other for the office. I decided to split in two because local network traffic between my office machines were overwhelming the network router and killing the internet connectivity for the wireless devices. Plus, keeping the office data in its own network is a plus for security.
So I have two routers. One is a Linksys WRT54G connected to my cable modem, which provides internet access to the house, including wifi access for guests. For wifi, it has WPA2 security and a relay station on the first floor to enhance cover. The second router, which is connected via a 100 Mbps interface to the Linksys, is a 1TB Apple Time Capsule. It provides gigabit ethernet connectivity to my work machines, wireless access for my portable devices (iPad, iPhone and MacBook Air) on two frequency bands (5GHz for MacBooks and iPads, 2.4GHz for iPhones), serves as a backup network disk for Macs and has a print server, to which my pre-historic Epson CX3700 is attached to.
Since I use a lot of remote access (ssh, vnc and Remote Desktop) and perform large file transfers (i.e. backups), gigabit ethernet is a must. For the MacBook Air (or when I need wireless with my MacBook Pro) and iPad, the 300 Mbps 802.11n at 5GHz guarantees an interference-free and fast connection for backups and media streaming. And for the iPhone, it has a 2.4GHz 802.11n network just for itself, as it is my only device which doesn’t have support for 5GHz wifi. Why 5GHz? Well… I have at least 8 active networks from my neighbors interfering here at 2.4GHz, so using mine at 5GHz improves things a lot.
Now, backups. Everything is done on the network, except for the Windows PC, which has a permanent eSATA connection to a 2TB external storage, used by the Windows 7 backup utility. Macs have their backups setup to be done in my 1TB Time Capsule disk using Time Machine. So, all backups (Macs and Windows) are automatic and require almost no interaction. The only problem are the Macs: since I use encrypted home directories for security, I have to log off so Time Machine can backup the encrypted volume (the rest of the disk is backed up automatically). I usually do it on a weekly basis (have a reminder set up in OmniFocus), or at the end of the day if I had done too much work that day. While I’m logged in, the MobileMe backup utility backs up on the cloud some selected files and folders which are critical. It’s very important to have an automatic, incremental backup scheme. If you don’t have one, it’s something to consider, specially if you have a lot of data.
I also use the network to access my files from everywhere using iDisk. I keep all the files I’m currently working on in my iDisk volume (I have a local, synchronized replica on each of my Macs), so I can access then from any computer or iOS device, including over the internet, since all is synchronized to the cloud. iWork.com and Dropbox also helps with document sharing.
Everything is synchronized between devices through the cloud, via MobileMe. I have 6 devices (2 Macs, 2 PCs, iPad and iPhone) to keep in sync, so a service like this is a must. This way, it doesn’t matter where I’m working, I always have the most current data – calendars, contacts, e-mail account settings, keychains, bookmarks, app settings, etc. MobileMe also provides a location service (Find My iPhone), which keeps track of my iOS devices. Very handy!
As you can see, most of my computing is done on the cloud: all my e-mail accounts are IMAP (including filters setup on server side), computer/app settings are saved remotely, backups on the cloud, sharing documents in iWork.com, sharing files via Dropbox, having my home directory on iDisk, saving articles using Instapaper, keeping track of projects in OmniFocus, notes on Evernote, Twitter clients in sync through Echofon and IMs synchronized via Trillian Astra. So, a good network infrastructure plays a huge role in the way I work. If you also do/plan to do most of your computing on the cloud, I suggest a setup like this. It will help a lot.