Thank you for your reply.
As I am not involved with social media or internet file sharing apps, my goal is to detach from the cloud and onedrive. I do have a home network with a main computer (win 8.1 pro) that I hope to configure as the hub for home network file sharing (raid 5 array) and backup (external hard drives). The home network, in addition to the main comp, consists of a surface pro 3 (win 8.1), a Win 7 Laptop, Tivo box, printer, and iphones. One very useful feature, for my purposes, that comes with a linked MS account is the synching capability. Do you know if software exists that provides system synching capability behind a home network firewall?