Wasn't sure where to stick this.

Once upon a time, everyone in the practice had roaming profiles in WinXP Pro, so if they logged in on one computer they could work on their files, log off, go onto another computer and the files would be the updated ones. Except apparently it was too slow. So now everyone logs on to a local account/profile.

The accountancy software automatically backs up on to a server. The only other people who do important work are the practice manager (who has a fetish with saving files on her desktop!), one of the nurses, and a couple of the docs (incl me). Now I happily just back up by copying on to the server and on to USB. Some of this work is sensitive (patient data) so can't take off site unless encrypted. Anything on the server gets backed up on to an external HDD that gets stored in a safe on a daily basis.

I'm interested in backing up files across several computers maybe every 2 days. It needs to run automatically because nobody apart from me is tech-savvy.

Any ideas on the best way to achieve this?

Simplest solution is probably put a NAS device on your network so all the PC's you want backed up can see it. Then go to each computer and set a scheduled back up task pointing it at the NAS device to back up to.

You might find a cheap cloudy solution more manageable, and much less likely to silently break on you for months at a time.
http://www.itpro.co.uk/644665/mozypro-review

Better still would be to convert from roaming to local profiles,then redirect mydocs and desktop to the server. Then back it up to a cloudy service.

Roaming profiles had been stopped and switch to local profiles a few years back because of issues (can't recall if too slow or if other problems - it was well before I joined GP training!).

Consequently, everyone has local profiles. Just really need to back up certain folders to somewhere else. The server has a shared folder that is mapped as an N: drive so could easily back up to that. Certainly, the accountancy software backs up to the server. It's all the other stuff like practice leaflet, complaint letters, etc that we ought to back up in case things go tits up.

EDIT: Given that some of the stuff would contain confidential info eg name, address etc, I'm very weary about off-site storage.

I wouldn't brick it about the offsite storage. Mozy and all their competitors are ISO27001certifed, there's no way your internal processes are secure enough to get such accreditation. Let the paranoid rant about the NSA in other parts of the forum, you need data security which means both confidentiality and availability. Your data can only be counted as secure if it is backed up offsite; cloudy services are much the best way to do that.

The normal approach is to create a new share on the folder called something like \\server\redirectedfolders\
And use group policy to make each account automatically create a new set of folders in there for %username%\desktop and %username%\Mydocs
Then those folders sync back to the desktop machine.
It's automatic (so you don't have to redo it every time you install a new PC or add a new user). It's always done with the same user account, so you don't change a password for something one day and then all of your computers silently stop backing up for 6 months.

The you back up your server offsite.

Well I've set one machine to back up a folder this afternoon to the server via winxp pro back up facility. We shall see what happens in the morning. The only machines that need backing up are only used by one person eg no one except me logs on to my computer in my room.