file sharing in the 21st century

wrx7m

Same boat as OP. I am following so that I can see what others have to say.

Dashrender

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?

scottalanmiller

@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 Gallery

Basically high level things that mimic security groups in the tradition mounted shares world.

Dashrender

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.

scottalanmiller

@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.

scottalanmiller

@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.

Dashrender

@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 Gallery

Basically 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?

Dashrender

@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?

Donahue

@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.

scottalanmiller

@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.

Donahue

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.

scottalanmiller

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.

Dashrender

@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?

scottalanmiller

@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.

Dashrender

@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.

scottalanmiller

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.

scottalanmiller

@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?

Dashrender

@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?

scottalanmiller

@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.

Dashrender

@scottalanmiller said in file sharing in the 21st century:

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.

We are talking about a shared folder system. Not personal files. Huge difference.