How to make your own cloud, automatically backup your phone pictures to your own android phone server

Android phones are becoming very cheap...in fact, I have purchased a few brand new android phones for as little as $10 (Verizon prepaid LGzone3 at BJs wholesale during Christmas - when you buy them, don't have verizon activate them or else you will have to set up an account and put money on it! You can use the phone just as android tablet without registering it!).  These phones offer a lot of functionality for a very low cost.

Today I will describe how to make your own very low cost personal cloud.  As a use example, I will
automatically back up my phone pictures to my own android cloud server (you can also back up any kind of file you want using this method)

Start with an Android phone as your server - low power, connects to wifi, and you can load it up with a big microsd card

I'm using a few pieces of free software:
resilio Sync - android version - used to access android phone server over the internet (used to be bittorrent sync)
FTPserver ultimate (by Ice Cold apps) - android app- will allow me to copy files from my server to my windows pc - both are on the same network (no internet access here)!
Alternately, I am using Webdav Server Ultimate instead of FTP (see very end of post)

One could also use the resilio windows sync software - but I believe you have to pay for that!

Install resilio app on the android phone that has the pictures (picture phone)
Install resilio app on the android "server" phone (server phone)
Install FTPserver ultimate on the android "server" phone

How to link the two phones:
start the resilio app on both the "server" phone and the picture phone
click the three lines in the upper left on both phones
click "my devices" on both phones
on both phones click the small computer like icon in the upper right of the screen
on one phone (e.g. the server phone) click the three dots in the upper right
select "show QR code"
Take the other phone and hold it over the phone that is showing the QR code (so the camera can see the QR code)
After a short period of time, the two phones should register with each other

How to select the folder to back up to the server phone:
On the phone that is the "picture phone", click the three lines in the upper left of the app
click "folders"
click the plus sign icon in the lower right of the screen
click "Add backup" - you will be adding the folder you want to back up
Navigate to the folder you would like to backup to the "server" (e.g. DCIM)
click "Choose Folder"
click "ADD"
The My devices list will appear- put a check in the box for the "server" phone
click "BACK UP"
After a few seconds, the folder will register with the server phone and files will start synching with the server phone

Now your files should sync between your "picture phone" and your server phone.

To copy your files from your server phone to your windows machine:
Install the FTPserver ultimate onto your android server phone
Determine the ip address of the server phone
Start the FTPserver ultimate app
Click Add, ftp server in the ftpserver ultimate app
Enter server phone ip address e.g. 192.168.1.10
Enter a port e.g. 2222
Click on "start on boot"
Click on "respawn"
At the top, click users
Click add
Enter a user name and password
select the location of the backup directory you have established on your server phone
Click the back button and select save settings (for users)
Click the back button again to save settings (for server settings)
The server should be set up....click "start" to start the server
Please note the ftp server address located next to the ftp cloud icon e.g. ftp://192.168.1.10:2222
you will need this to connect to the phone from your windows machine

On your windows machine, open a file explorer
click on "this PC" in the left pane.
At the top you will see "add a network location" - click this
click "next"
click "choose a custom network location"
click "next"
enter something similar to the following that uses the ftp address I asked you to note above:
ftp://192.168.1.10:2222
click "next"
uncheck "log on anonymously"
enter the username you assigned above
Click "next"
Enter a name for the link you are about to make e.g. androidbackupserver
Click "next"
then enter password and click save password...
you should now see a entry in the left hand side of your filemanager, when clicked should take you
directly to your server directory

--------
I have determined that setting up a webdav server on the server phone is more useful than the ftp server.  The webdav server I used is called WebDAV Server Ultimate on the google play store.
Once you add a server, there is no need to add users (actually you shouldn't).  Next go to a windows filemanager, click on "this pc" then at the top click map network drive.  Once the window pops up, type something like this into the entry box http://192.168.1.10:2222, where the ip address is the ip address of your webdav server and the number is the port the webdav server is running on the "server phone"