Best Approach for Migrating 4TB of Data from Dropbox to Nextcloud

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I’m looking for advice on migrating approximately 4TB of data from Dropbox to Nextcloud. My Nextcloud server is ready and has sufficient storage capacity. I’ve been researching different migration methods but would appreciate guidance from the community.

Details:

1- My Nextcloud server is running on Ubuntu with MySQL.
2- I need the migration to preserve file structure, metadata, and timestamps.
3- The process should be resumable in case of interruptions.

Questions:

  • What tools or methods do you recommend for such a large-scale migration?
  • Are there any API-based solutions or scripts available to streamline the migration?
  • Any tips to optimize performance or handle potential issues?
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I backup one of my clients Dropbox vià API to a TrueNAS system that then Snapshots the data. API calls for your roughly 10TB data takes up to 2 days. Download speeds are half decent, but the API calls seem to be rate limited.

So if you need the migration to happen during one evening or something, I would recommend you looking into how you could copy the data from a Dropbox Desktop client onto your Ubuntu Server.

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For migrating 4TB from Dropbox to Nextcloud, Rclone is your best bet. It preserves file structure, metadata, and timestamps, and supports resumable transfers.

Steps:

  1. Install Rclone on your Ubuntu server.
  2. Configure it with rclone config and connect to Dropbox.
  3. Use rclone sync or rclone copy to transfer data to Nextcloud.

Tips:

  • Run transfers during off-peak hours.
  • Use --transfers for faster performance.
  • Ensure sufficient disk space throughout.

For more advanced automation, consider custom scripts using Dropbox’s API and Nextcloud’s APIs.

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if i was you install rclone on your nextcloud machine if you are using ubuntu or whatever create the remote to your dropbox and then sync it to your ncdata directory.

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