Nextcloud introduces Virtual Drive in Desktop Client to simplify desktop integration

Why not develop a seperate virtual drive version with online & smart sync option like maintain duck?

btw, the tech view client does not work under win10 anymore.

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Please do not disable folder sync mode. If you switch to virtual drive-only, I’d have to either freeze updates or switch to a different system, which would be a bummer. NextCloud is cool, but virtual drive just doesn’t even remotely work for my work flow. I require per-folder persistence control and canonical local reference.

As a larger point, one of the frustrations I have with development efforts is the “briliant new idea” replacing the old paradigm. Consistency should be the most important requirement of any development project. While the first obligation is security and it may be necessary from time to time to disable features that prove to be security vulerabilities, the next most critical responsibility of any project is the obligation to support existing users and not make presumptions about what works best for them on their behalf.

I can see the value of a virtual drive mode, for sure, and would be happy to have the option, but not at the expense of breaking my current workflow and rendering the core value of the project moot.

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@law I too would consider this a terrible regression.

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Sorry, I am a step behind. As far as I understand Virtual Drive it seems to be a little like IMAP: If there is no connection to the internet I wouldn’t have access to my files, isn’t it?

Removing or disabling folder sync in deference to virtual drive would be terrible for my team. Doing so would undermine a significant use case in which full data redundancy is required.

Please do not remove or disable full folder sync.

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I’d like one PC client with 3 different options:

  1. Complete sync mode,
  2. Smart sync mode (partial sync or delta sync as needed), default option
  3. Virtual mode or online mode (just leave files online)

ps: Mountain duck client provides the last two options.
I use Mountain duck client with online mode at present.

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If the team is still soliciting feedback, I need to agree with @mophilly. I actually may have some good use cases for the virtual drive, but losing the traditional sync folder would break too many of my workflows. Additionally most of my “users” are non-technically inclined family with whom it would be both a logistical and temperamental challenge to change their workflow. Frankly I don’t want to teach myself new workflows either :slight_smile:

So I’m not pooh-pooh’ing the virtual drive at all, just please, please don’t remove the sync folder functionality. Even if the sync folder and virtual drive could not live alongside each other simultaneously for any reason, it would still be infinitely better to have to make an exclusive choice of installing whichever option was most suited for that machine’s/user’s use cases, versus finding and migrating to a new platform.

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There is still a lot of work to do for this Virtual Drive to be tested correctly.
The V2 of the test build was due in May, and we are at the mid-June.
The stable build is due to septembre 2019.

I think we will have to wait more.

I love the idea of this network drive, like Google Drive did and ownCloud too.

But @jospoortvliet, please understand that for the benefit of every users, they should have the choice of the sync methode.

In my scenario i have two enterprises that will embrase for sure the Virtual Drive methode because they really need it. They use the ownCloud Virtual drive client for the moment and have to accepts some bugs.
But all of the others enterprises where i installed Nextcloud won’t appreciate the Virtual Drive sync because the actual works perfect for them. If they need to remove / delete the local sync, then setup the virtual one, download locally the folders they want… they won’t be happy at all.

For my workflow i will need to redo my links because the software i use, use the complete path whereas the relative one will be better, but it’s like that. So everytime i will open a doc i will have to change the path from C:\Users\MyName\Nextcloud[…] to X:[…]

Hope the good decision will be taken. I know it’s more work to maintain the two syncs but it is more profitable. Google Drive and ownCloud still gave the user the choice of the sync. Please don’t be like Apple and Impose your directions where we can still have the choice.

Have a good day team !

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Virtual drives would destroy the use case for Nextcloud for me and my client environments. I have a 300 user site that was moved to Nextcloud precisely because their previous solution was moving to virtual-only drives,
This would make the product useless for me.
One of the biggest advantages Nextcloud has for me in the market is the full sync others do not have.

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For our business users, this is a feature that is very welcome for us. Especially in the cases where a groep of people (like a financial department) are working all working day with the same set of files. They need functionality like the good old fileserver and the sync folder is no good match. We have some solution in place, like a fileserver which is being synced with nextcloudcmd, but it’s not ideal. Also other solutions like mountain duck didn’t work well (apart from the licensing fees).

I read all the comments and I think the implementation of the functionality in the preview where you have the sync and the virtual drive in one is a good approach.

But… I tested the virtualdrive preview, but it’s nowhere near production ready (created github issues for it). Let us know when we can do anything (apart from the coding, as we are not coders) to speed up this development up.

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I really hope current sync folders option will remain available. Virtual drive only solution is not good move in my opinion. This way there is no option to sync any folder I want from my current setup. The best option would be to have 2 separate clients, likes Seafile does. Or have option in current client to turn Virtual drive on and off as in Tresorit. So users will have a choice and can decide what to use, as it should be.

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Hi,

sorry for the late reply, my account was broken due to a bug in discourse for a long time and now I have about 1 million messages to get to :wink:

So first, we haven’t decided anything - development is nearly stalled as we’re busy with customer support issues and I don’t expect much progress until we’ve hired somebody, which itself is stalled for other reasons. It’ll take some time.

In any case, please keep in mind that the ‘virtual drive’ DOES sync files locally - and DOES work offline, of course. On a system like Linux you could probably symlink folders in place of the current ones to the virtual drive and things would work exactly like today, except that you can decide, for each file, if it is synced, not only per folder, and you would be able to ALWAYS see all the files, even those that aren’t synced and they get synced automatically whenever you open them.

We absolutely don’t want to break any existing workflows - we will try to find a solution so things keep working the way they do to day as much as possible. I think the only thing that would stop working is that you can’t access the files when the client isn’t running. You don’t have to be online, but no client = no files. This, I think, not a step back, but an improvement because it happens to many people that they change some files, shut down their computer, leave - and the files weren’t synced because the client was not running. That won’t happen anymore!

Anyway. Once we have a more stable virtual drive, we’ll maintain both clients until we have found a good migration solution.

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For me, as i use the ownCloud Virtual Drive sync, and reed carefully the blog about the Nextcloud Virtual Drive sync, i know that you can still left click on files/folders and make them available offline.
In fact Virtual Drive is really a neat feature.

But we (community and Nextcloud team) should open a dialog to state about the futur of the nextcloud client sync method (only one ? Both ?..).
Because there is some drawbacks, some movement to teach to customers, and workflows to modify.

The dialog must start as soon as possible because there is some Dev work to do on the nextcloud client, there is some annoying bugs on the actual version that need to be fix… it’s better to know what would be great for the most users before working on something that can agrevate…

Hope you will find some good persons to hire, it’s very important.

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As someone mentioned, Nextcloud (or other similar products) is used also as a backup tool. And in that case, current structure is better. I know many cloud solutions are offering or swithing to this type of file sync and usage, but it is really, really important give user all possible options and he should decide what to use. You can put Virtual drive as default setting, but don’t remove what we have now.

I will put Nextcloud client on autostart, so it’ll always be on. So in that case, virtual drive is no better. I agree it is usefull, and all the services I used or use (Seafile, pCloud, Tresorit, Onedrive) have something similar. But also have standard sync option. If Nexcloud ditches current client, it might not be as competitive as it is now.

So please keep both options on the table. If it works (and at this moment it’s working great for me), don’t fix it :wink: I’m not sure what else need to be improved in desktop clients exept maybe e2ee workflow. So keep fixing exisiting bugs and let the code live :smiley:

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Please keep in mind, and spread the news : Nextcloud isn’t a backup solution, even in the basic function.

If you look at the start page nextcloud.com you won’t see anywhere the word backup used.

If you get a bug on your nextcloud server, it could overwrite your files on your computer… and what do you do with that if you think nextcloud is my backup…

Your nextcloud server need to be backed up ! If you don’t have, so nextcloud cannot be used as a backup solution.

End of the tip.

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I know it isn’t, but it is good enough for personal use. Not that I don’t make occasional backups to external drive. Also, since I use it on dual boot machine, where one do not have access to other’s storage, it is (almost) impossible for me to loose data in case of server error :wink:

I think what people are trying to say: Never underestimate the “power” of files/folders/data lying additionally natively and in the expected structure “directly on” the filesystem/“hardware” without the need of a deamon/software/service and other requirements or further thinking. In some cases this can be half a backup or at least it might safe your ass in certain situations. Do not underestimate this!

EDIT: add “additionally”

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One more thing - the main issue with NC Virtual drive, and similar solution is location of data on client side. E.g. if I don’t have enough space on my C:\ disk, I would like to set all the cache and synced files to be on D:\ drive. Or maybe split some on one drive (those I offen use on SSD) and some on the other (those I rarely use on HDD), etc. With current setup I can do that. And also map network drive via webdav so I can access any file I need that is not synced

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It’s just a little tweak that can be easily made.

It can be discuss on the github as a feature/improvement.

Even if you don’t code, you can create an Issue for asking this feature, i’m sure a lot of users will agree with this idea.

Forgive me if this note is redundant or if i have overlooked something.

“On demand” file download (aka Virtual Drive) is a worthwhile feature.

However, I have an application that requires fully redundant file sets. This is because the end users frequently have no internet access. In those moments they need the local files to continue their work. For this reason I urge the dev group to retain the local sync client functionality.