Moving data from NAS to ownCloud server

Server
1

I'm reaching out to the community here for assistance as I'm very new to ownCloud.

I have a user that has a NAS device with approximately 50+ GB of data he wants to move to their ownCloud instance that's stored on a Ubuntu server. Currently he has been manually dragging and dropping files from his Finder (MAC) to the Web Interface of the instance. This has proved to be very inefficient and time consuming for the user. He wants to know if there is a way to make this process more efficient by possibly allowing the NAS to communicate directly with the ownCloud instance as opposed to going through the "Web" to transmit the data.

Thank you for reading this topic and I'll welcome as much help as I can get.

2

It really depends on the options he has on the NAS, as well as the options he has to access the server where the OwnCloud instance runs. The most stable and efficient option would be to transfer the files via rsync over an SSH connection.
If that does not work, another easy option should be to simply use the desktop sync client which also works quite good.
One more option would be to mount a specific folder from the OwnCloud account via WebDAV to his local computer and transfer the files via that option.

3

Any reason to move the contents to ownCloud instead of accessing to those contents through ownCloud? Moving 50+ GB might take a long time.

I'd recommend to check what the files_external app can offer to you. The main goal is to access to those files through different connectors such as SFTP, webdav and others that can be configured in the settings page. There are more connectors available in the marketplace.

Basically, check how can you access to that NAS from the ownCloud server and configure the appropiated connector accordingly.

4

Pipe,

Thank you for your response. To answer your question, the user has full-admin permissions to both the NAS and the ownCloud instance.

Can you tell me how you'd go about the rsync command via SSH?

Thank you.

5

J,

The user wants to decommission the NAS; that's why we don't want to use any type of method for him and his users to access the contents through the NAS. He'd like to place all the contents within the ownCloud instance and be rid of the NAS device.

Thank you.

6

Hi Joe,

you basically just need one command to perform the sync:

rsync -a --progress -e ssh /folder/to/source remoteuser@remotehost:/location/of/target

This tells rsync to transfer all files from the host where it is executed (NAS) to the new remote location. The --progress flag gives detailed info about the current file that is being transferred and the speed.
The benefit of using rsync is that it is very stable and you can continue interrupted transfers easily.

You can find more information here:
https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/rsync#Automated_backup_with_SSH

newpipe

7

Pipe,

Thank you for the post. I have suggested this to my client and he's going to give it a shot. Hopefully it works out for him.

Thank you very much for your help thus far. I'll keep you posted and let you know if it works.

Joe

8

Pipe,

My customer said he's familiar with rsync and was going to give it a try. I haven't heard anything from him in a few days so I'm hoping no news is good news.