I was just in Kenya for several weeks helping some wildlife conservation orgs with their computers and IT. The biggest issue (aside from not enough funds to update tech as often as they should) is that most locations have very limited internet; It is slow and metered. And the A/C power is also not 100% reliable, so battery backup is essential.
I like Resilio Sync as the backup tool, since it works cross platform, keeps older versions around in an archive, and stores files in a standard directory structure that can still be read without the client. So really an ideal device for me would be:
A NAS that can run Resilio Sync that uses USB 3 bus-powered drives like the WD Elements Portable https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0713WPGLL/?t=it4np-20&ie=UTF8
Ideally it would have it's own ~15 minute battery back up, and shut itself down when the battery reaches ~20%. Or minimally have a USB port that an external UPS could hook into via USB and receive a shut down message.
I'd like it to be a universal update server as well so it can serve all Windows 10 updates, but also 8 and 7, and even better if it can do iOS and Android as well (hey, since I'm speccing the ideal, why not?!)
Massive bonus points if it also included a DHCP wifi router that could do robust internet filtering to prevent P2P, YouTube, video, auto updates, and other traffic that would eat through their metered allotment.
Worst case is to just get a cheap Windows 10 laptop with a 1 TB hard drive, install Resilio Sync, turn on Windows 10 update sharing for it and all the other devices on the network, have a separate UPS for this laptop, get a robust security appliance (like Meraki MX64W), allow this (and only this) update/backup to connect through to the update services on the internet so that only one copy of every update is downloaded, and then it's cached locally and served to all other devices.
OK, so after typing all of that, the chance that such a device exists is practically 0. But what would you all recommend as a setup to handle this? Remember, this is essentially a "small office business" of <50 devices, and they really don't have an IT expert, so whatever gets set up either needs to be remotely managed or can be simple enough for someone with basic training to keep things going (e.g. swapping the backup drives every week).