Keep files on the Server only in prep for new HDD.. what to do

📱 Desktop & mobile clients 💻 Desktop
1

Hey all, I am a newcomer here and first time user of NextCloud.

I have sync’d all my important local files to the cloud (80gb), and now intend on formatting my HDD the next day, potentially exchanging it for a SDD completely.

After reading about 20+ threads here to get a better idea of how things work, I saw that I should not locally “untick” the sync box on a folder, since it would actually delete the files completely, at least that is my take-away from the many threads (:robot:).

So how do I stop the sever from making changes based on my local client?
Once I have a formatting HDD, or a new one, my intention is to re-connect to the sever and download the server files to my new HDD.

What do I need to do to make sure this happens, and that I do not end up deleting files locally and on the server? I am using the NextCloud client.

Thanks!
Matt

Version 2.6.0stable-Win64 (build 20190927). For more information please click [here](https://docs.nextcloud.com/desktop/2.6/).

    Built from Git revision [e0b32c]
2

If you stop the nextcloud client on your Windows machine, the server will never know, what changes you do to your files. It’s unclear to me if you have multiple HDDs on your PC or only one. However, whatever your system setup is right now: If you uninstall the client from Windows, you can be sure the server won’t delete files just because you delete them on your client pc…

For the old files transferred back to your client pc, just install the nextcloud client and login to your server.

It’s actually quite straightforward… Maybe I misunderstood your problem tho

3

Great, thanks Gee. I imagined once the hidden files were gone, and the client removed/not logged into the account, everything would be fine.

Wanted to be on the safe side, and you just confirmed all will be fine. Thanks!

4

No problem :slight_smile:
Might be a good idea to keep the old hdd with your data tho. Nextcloud on its own is not a real backup solution… I would not like the feeling to delete all my original files and only keeping one single copy of them on the server… you could keep the old hdd in a shelf as an offline backup… Just an idea! :slight_smile:

1 Like