file sharing in the 21st century
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I mentioned this in another thread, but I currently have a file server which is a 2012R2 VM sharing roughly 6TB of data. I am looking into replacing this with something more modern, so far I am checking out Nextcloud.
But having read most of the threads on ML dealing with nextcloud, and especially reading about experiences such as @guyinpv had here and here, I think we need to take a hard look at how we share files now, and why we do it the way we do it, and maybe find other methods and philosophies that we could implement for a better overall experience.
In a lot of ways, I can relate to @guyinpv, as his setup sounds a lot like mine. We currently have our VM, with a single share that is applied as a mapped drive using GPO. Inside this share is a number of root level folders, basically one for each department. Inside each of these are the typical level of nested subfolders and files. All of the first couple levels of folders from the share root were created by me, and users are locked out of being able to make changes until they are a few layers deep into their department.
Based on my research and conversations I have had, I think we have a very narrow idea of what a file share should be like, because all we know is how windows operates. As far as we treat the system, there is no one that "owns" any of the files, even though windows records an owner. No one has any sort of personal or private files that they "share" with other users. The files exist in the share that we created, and both users likely have equal permissions to said file.
I would like to expand my horizons, because I don't feel like I fully understand how other companies might use something like NC. If we are to take full advantage of what NC offers, it may require a fundamental shift in thinking by us and I want to get started on that now.
How do other people use NC? Specifically, how are folder structures or other structures, and how does that relate to user accounts? What does the anatomy of a cloud based solution look like when done well? I think I would like to use the sync client in windows, but I have only just started to play around with an online demo.
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Same boat as OP. I am following so that I can see what others have to say.
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Third on this boat.
Question for OP. Why do you say you want the sync client? Syncing 6 TB of data is not likely to go well to client machines. Even if you reduce it only to their department folder that could easily be 100’s of GB, also not likely to work well.
Also syncing, in my opinion. Is mostly for offline access, do your users have offline access now?
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@Donahue said in file sharing in the 21st century:
Specifically, how are folder structures or other structures, and how does that relate to user accounts?
We make a top level folder for every department.
Examples..
Personal Files (unique to every user)
HR
Accounting / Finance
Executive Management
Photo GalleryBasically high level things that mimic security groups in the tradition mounted shares world.
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Someone else mentioned that they extend file access to mobiles through NC, but the internal windows access is all done natively through a windows share.
This is done by mapping the windows share into the NC install as a storage repo, then remote users use the NC access solution.
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@Dashrender said in file sharing in the 21st century:
Someone else mentioned that they extend file access to mobiles through NC, but the internal windows access is all done natively through a windows share.
This is done by mapping the windows share into the NC install as a storage repo, then remote users use the NC access solution.
We use NC on mobile, but not mounted shares for Windows.
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@Dashrender said in file sharing in the 21st century:
Also syncing, in my opinion. Is mostly for offline access, do your users have offline access now?
I don't think that that is often the case. Lots of people want to do that for just simple, transparent access. Lots of people dislike using the web interface to get to files.
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@scottalanmiller said in file sharing in the 21st century:
@Donahue said in file sharing in the 21st century:
Specifically, how are folder structures or other structures, and how does that relate to user accounts?
We make a top level folder for every department.
Examples..
Personal Files (unique to every user)
HR
Accounting / Finance
Executive Management
Photo GalleryBasically high level things that mimic security groups in the tradition mounted shares world.
I don’t think this is so much in question, more how is access actually accomplished? Embrace shares? WebDAV? https ? Sync?
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@scottalanmiller said in file sharing in the 21st century:
@Dashrender said in file sharing in the 21st century:
Also syncing, in my opinion. Is mostly for offline access, do your users have offline access now?
I don't think that that is often the case. Lots of people want to do that for just simple, transparent access. Lots of people dislike using the web interface to get to files.
So how do you keep problems out when syncing 100’s of GB?
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@Dashrender said in file sharing in the 21st century:
Third on this boat.
Question for OP. Why do you say you want the sync client? Syncing 6 TB of data is not likely to go well to client machines. Even if you reduce it only to their department folder that could easily be 100’s of GB, also not likely to work well.
Also syncing, in my opinion. Is mostly for offline access, do your users have offline access now?
we do not have offline access now. Syncing is mostly so that people, especially our engineering people, can work with a local copy of the drawing they are working on, while also having it in the server. We usually never have the same drawing open by multiple people, so conflicts should be minimal. But if we use sync, then I would have to be very selective about what I set people up with, because syncing 6TB is a no go.
We have two sites, and half of my users access our existing file server over the WAN. I think that syncing may help this.
Mobile access would be a benefit of opening this up to the internet, and is on my mind.
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@Dashrender said in file sharing in the 21st century:
@scottalanmiller said in file sharing in the 21st century:
@Dashrender said in file sharing in the 21st century:
Also syncing, in my opinion. Is mostly for offline access, do your users have offline access now?
I don't think that that is often the case. Lots of people want to do that for just simple, transparent access. Lots of people dislike using the web interface to get to files.
So how do you keep problems out when syncing 100’s of GB?
How many people need to sync 100s of GBs of files? That's not normal.
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Most of our files are going to not change frequently, so after the initial sync, it should be minimal traffic. Once the 100GB was done, it would only be small changes of single digit MB mostly.
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What problems are assumed to happen based on large sync amounts? Typically we sync nothing close to that size, but size of the sync doesn't create issues normally.
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@scottalanmiller said in file sharing in the 21st century:
@Dashrender said in file sharing in the 21st century:
@scottalanmiller said in file sharing in the 21st century:
@Dashrender said in file sharing in the 21st century:
Also syncing, in my opinion. Is mostly for offline access, do your users have offline access now?
I don't think that that is often the case. Lots of people want to do that for just simple, transparent access. Lots of people dislike using the web interface to get to files.
So how do you keep problems out when syncing 100’s of GB?
How many people need to sync 100s of GBs of files? That's not normal.
If you don’t sync a file how do you get access to it? Web only?
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@Dashrender said in file sharing in the 21st century:
@scottalanmiller said in file sharing in the 21st century:
@Dashrender said in file sharing in the 21st century:
@scottalanmiller said in file sharing in the 21st century:
@Dashrender said in file sharing in the 21st century:
Also syncing, in my opinion. Is mostly for offline access, do your users have offline access now?
I don't think that that is often the case. Lots of people want to do that for just simple, transparent access. Lots of people dislike using the web interface to get to files.
So how do you keep problems out when syncing 100’s of GB?
How many people need to sync 100s of GBs of files? That's not normal.
If you don’t sync a file how do you get access to it? Web only?
- Who needs access to that many files? Not our users, or our normal customers.
- Web or WebDAV mount.
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@scottalanmiller said in file sharing in the 21st century:
What problems are assumed to happen based on large sync amounts? Typically we sync nothing close to that size, but size of the sync doesn't create issues normally.
I’ve only used OneDrive recently and they just hide sync all the time and have to resync constantly.
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Remember, the majority of users in the majority of companies only use like 5GB of storage, and mostly just documents. Needing TBs of data is a thing that happens, but normally to very isolated users and user types, and only in some businesses.
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@Dashrender said in file sharing in the 21st century:
@scottalanmiller said in file sharing in the 21st century:
What problems are assumed to happen based on large sync amounts? Typically we sync nothing close to that size, but size of the sync doesn't create issues normally.
I’ve only used OneDrive recently and they just hide sync all the time and have to resync constantly.
hide sync?
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@scottalanmiller said in file sharing in the 21st century:
@Dashrender said in file sharing in the 21st century:
@scottalanmiller said in file sharing in the 21st century:
@Dashrender said in file sharing in the 21st century:
@scottalanmiller said in file sharing in the 21st century:
@Dashrender said in file sharing in the 21st century:
Also syncing, in my opinion. Is mostly for offline access, do your users have offline access now?
I don't think that that is often the case. Lots of people want to do that for just simple, transparent access. Lots of people dislike using the web interface to get to files.
So how do you keep problems out when syncing 100’s of GB?
How many people need to sync 100s of GBs of files? That's not normal.
If you don’t sync a file how do you get access to it? Web only?
- Who needs access to that many files? Not our users, or our normal customers.
- Web or WebDAV mount.
So you end up with a mixed use of sync and WebDAV.
I need access to hundreds or thousands of files on our shared drive, but I don’t need them synced... so WebDAV is my solution... how does NC protect against cryptoware on a WebDAV share?
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@Dashrender said in file sharing in the 21st century:
@scottalanmiller said in file sharing in the 21st century:
@Dashrender said in file sharing in the 21st century:
@scottalanmiller said in file sharing in the 21st century:
@Dashrender said in file sharing in the 21st century:
@scottalanmiller said in file sharing in the 21st century:
@Dashrender said in file sharing in the 21st century:
Also syncing, in my opinion. Is mostly for offline access, do your users have offline access now?
I don't think that that is often the case. Lots of people want to do that for just simple, transparent access. Lots of people dislike using the web interface to get to files.
So how do you keep problems out when syncing 100’s of GB?
How many people need to sync 100s of GBs of files? That's not normal.
If you don’t sync a file how do you get access to it? Web only?
- Who needs access to that many files? Not our users, or our normal customers.
- Web or WebDAV mount.
So you end up with a mixed use of sync and WebDAV.
In very special circumstances, sure. Right now, NextCloud doesn't offer a sync / non-sync option any other way.
