Nextcloud data sharing of a remote fileserver

ℹ️ Support
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1

I have a situation in which i have an existing fileserver, with an important data structure.
Next to it on another pc i have a nextcloud server.
I would like to share the fileserver data through nextcloud, (nextcloud as inbetween).
Keeping data inside file server who has huge disks.
To have both of them available, the file sever uses Samba shares.

I’m new to NextCloud, and a bit new to debian as well, in the past i was deeply into sharepoint.
Now i wonder what can be made with Nextcloud. From what i see is that people are often attached to their existing data infrastructure so i would like to test if it is possible to get the best of both worlds. ea use a file server below a nextcloud server

So I get nextcloud access to files, adding extra functionalities to existing file server data infrastructures.

I’m investigating configurations here, and don’t know if such a configuration has a specific nextcloud term (and there are spefic manuals for it) so far i failed finding white papers about it.

Nextcloud version (eg, 18.0.2): Latest as of 14/7
Operating system and version : Debian 10
Apache or nginx version (eg, Apache 2.4.25): Apache
PHP version (eg, 7.1): 7.3

2

You have the external storage feature, where you can use external storage such as samba, sftp and other to use within Nextcloud. By default, it is an extra folder for this external storage and the main storage is on the local machine.

You can also set up the external storage as primary storage, meaning the main storage is your personal network drive. The setup is more complicated, I don’t think you can set it up via GUI, there are code snippets here and there but nothing (for object storage: https://docs.nextcloud.com/server/19/admin_manual/configuration_files/primary_storage.html). However it should be possible…

I’d first check the normal external storage if you are happy with how it works (performance etc.) and play around with that. Only go the second step with primary storage if you are sure about it. Enterprise support can certainly help you with that, would be great to have a decent description in the open version as well (if you are willing to share your experience).

3

With less knowledge is the best way to use your external fileserver (samba) as external secondary storage in a folder https://docs.nextcloud.com/server/19/admin_manual/configuration_files/external_storage/smb.html

Now you can share or not share external storage through nextcloud with other persons. If you want to share them, you must activate it.

sharing
(your configuration differs: not Local but then smb/samba. Set “Enable sharing”)

But you can also copy files from your external storage (samba) to your nextcloud (local) and then share only copies from data.

Nextcloud is a free software. You can do everything you like.

4

Ok thanks for putting me in the right direction