I moved off a Synology NAS to a self-managed machine and one thing I still struggle to replace is something like a synology drive. Here are my requirements:

  • server side store data in a plain FS (I want transparency)
  • client side (windows), it must support VFS (download files when needed, support offloading of large files)
  • having snapshots of data is a must

I have a 40gbit uplink to my desktop, so if everything else fails I’ll just use samba with zfs snapshots exposed to VSS, but we’re talking some large files still (think several hundreds of MBs) and I’m not sure Blender will be happy working off a network disk.

I’ve been pointed to next/own-cloud previously, but they don’t seem to cover my use case, I think. Should I actually try one of those? I browsed around owncloud’s storage bit (which is written in go), and it seems mostly fitting, but I’ve been told I should steer away from ownCloud towards nextCloud.

  • Guenther_Amanita@slrpnk.netEnglish
    32·
    1 month ago

    If you have a spare laptop/ PC, I insist you to try Nextcloud.

    It’s super easy to install, you actually just download the Docker all-in-one container and it runs in less than 10 minutes. You don’t have much to loose.
    I’m relatively happy with it.

    I mean, to be fair, NC isn’t perfect. It sometimes feels a bit wonky and tries to do everything, while exceeding at nothing.
    But it’s damn comfortable to set up and maintain.

    It doesn’t perfectly cover your use case, but everything else (individual services, including web server, database, etc.) is less centralised and more complicated to set up.
    Since NC AIO is inside a container, all data are too. It’s a relatively straightforward file system afaik.
    Backup also is included, but you have to do it manually by default and it stops the services while doing it.

    For offloading large files, you might look into 3rd party tools. NC is basically a remote drive you can connect to with most programs that support it.

    • TCB13@lemmy.worldEnglish
      3·
      1 month ago

      Yes, but Nextcloud is the fastest way to have something half done, always buggy and sync issues once you’ve a ton of small files. Too bad Syncthing doesn’t do selective sync because it would just be perfect.

      • Guenther_Amanita@slrpnk.netEnglish
        1·
        1 month ago

        I never had any (major) problems with Nextcloud yet.

        I just have following “conflicts” with it:

        • It doesn’t follow the “Do one thing, and do it right”-philosophy. It tries to do everything at once. File upload/ sharing, media management (NC Photos), RSS, mail, calendar, contacts, and much, much more. I mean, it’s damn convenient and works pretty fine, but nothing is great. For example, Immich/ Photoprism is way better than NC for photo management.
        • There’s a lot of abandonware, or buggy/ unmaintained apps. For example, my “News”-feed looks completely broken for months now.
        • The performance isn’t good. I mean, the “server” (an old thin client) isn’t fast at all, but the loading times and responsiveness is just awful. The file upload also takes ages, even from the same network.
        • It feels bloated. I think, if I would be more into selfhosting and had more time, I would search for alternatives and split all the NC features I use into their own services, e.g. one for file upload, one for document management, one for managing my photos, an own RSS client, and more.

        But, as I said, the ease of use and amount of features is still great. I don’t want to spend three weekends just troubleshooting my server and searching for/ installing dozens of individial services. And for that, it’s good enough.

        • TCB13@lemmy.worldEnglish
          1·
          1 month ago

          It tries to do everything at once. File upload/ sharing, media management (NC Photos), RSS, mail, calendar, contacts, and much, much more.

          Yes, and all of those things are fundamentally broken / poorly implemented.

          The performance isn’t good. I mean, the “server” (an old thin client) isn’t fast at all, but the loading times and responsiveness is just awful. The file upload also takes ages, even from the same network.

          I’ve had similar experiences with an overpowered AMD server. It isn’t good at all, but how can I expect a thing written in PHP to be good at syncing files? PHP is good, but certainly not to handle files like NC has to do.

          I don’t want to spend three weekends just troubleshooting my server and searching for/ installing dozens of individial services. And for that, it’s good enough.

          Fair enough, I just hope you don’t have to spend a month trying to fix whatever is wrong with NC on the next update. For me Synching + FileBrowser + Samba seems to be straightforward to get going and is as reliable as it gets.