Raspberry Pi as second server (like cache server) when main is asleep (power saving)

Hello Nextcloud Community and Team,

I am thinking about my Nextcloud 13 Server to make it more acessible.

Right now it runs with OpenMediavault on the same server and uses its own File Folders for every user and some smb file shares.

The whole server can be waked over lan with my raspberry pi through a website.

My idea is, that I can use Nextcloud, e.g. for Nextcloud Talk etc. but don’t want to switch on the server everytime, because it consumes a lot of power. So instead the Pi that is allways on is there.

If I am in the local network my DNS Server redirects the “www.mynextloud.com” (not the real name) to the local IP 192.168.2.100.
So inside of my local network I don´t go through the router to the internet to access the server.

So outside of the local network my router redirects https to the Server.

Problem, the Pi only has 100MBit/s which is quiet low in the local network, but fast enough for access over the internet, because I don`t even have that fast internet speed from may internet provider.

Is there any possibility that people from outside can access Nextcloud through my pi and use talk and if I switch on the server can Access their data and otherwise no data is possible and only calender, nextcloud talk, etc?

The Database would be then on the Pi and both instances could run on the same time (some accessing over the Internet, some over the local network).
I would change the https redirect from outside to the pi.

Is this possible?

There are deployment schemes but not like this. You could perhaps do it differently: You know that you can share data and files between Nextcloud setups. So you could install one Nextcloud setup on your raspi and one on your NAS. You primarily use Raspberry where you have contacts, talk and so on (with federated sharing, you can access to data on your NAS via raspberry). At home, you could still connect directly to your NAS-Nextcloud for better performance. You should use the same authentication backend.

Without knowing your situation, a NAS server with lower power consumption (with OS+database on a SSD) that can run 24/7 would be the easiest option in terms of configuration. These devices are not extremely expensive.

Thanks for your reply. Now that the Raspberry Pi 4 comes out with Gigabit Ethernet I will probably use this one. So all can access the raspberry pi also with the database on it.

Best would be to have raspberry pi like a cache server. It is caching calender, talk, contacts, new files and when the main (storage) server wakes up it syncs everything with it (like master-slave or something).

Problem:
My Storage would be on my big server with a few hdd´s and also other services, like backing up the computer clients in the network.

Could I use the second server through NFS as the Primary Storage in nextcloud (with Object Storage is this possible as far as I have seen it).

If it is possible to have it as primary storage (otherwise I have to change every users file structure to make everything in a folder which is inconvienend) what would happen if my storage server is offline? Is there a way that my raspberry has a cache for uploading and when the server wakes up it rights to it? If the storage server is offline is the nextcloud webpage useable or showing the whole time errors and clients error out because syncing is not possible?

The next thing would be picture preview generation. The raspberry pi needs much longer than the storage server with a more powerfull processor or if I add something like face recognition app that run periodically.

In the end I just want to use the storage server for storage and I want that my calender, contacts and nextcloud talk is 24/7 available and syncing.

A low power consumption server maybe possible but mine is no consuming around 30W idle and this is a big difference to around 3W idle with the raspberry pi (in my case 3B later maybe the new 4).

Another way would be to use the new speed of the raspberry pi 4 with an SSD for nextcloud completely and use some shared folders (used for different services as well) on the storage server.
Would the users then see the whole time errors because the external storage is offline?

I have one big folder that has a lot of data (Media, pictures) that is an external storage folder, because other services access it also.
But it is something that gets accessed or files are changed frequently.

Also I don’t know if the raspberry pi 4 could handle the thousands of pictures (preview:all needs I think almost a day or so and facerecognition would be not possible).
Or is it possible that the big server generates the previews and puts them in the preview folder on the SSD that is attached to the raspberry pi 4?

(Right now I am using Nextcloud 16.0.1 php 7.3, mariadb)

In the future I want to use maybe OnlyOffice and Collabora (for perfect file format compatibility, some are using LibreOffice other use MS Office document formats). Raspberry pi would be not very good even with raspberry pi 4 with 4 GB of RAM. My Storage server is right now 3 * 4TB WD RED (Snapraid, 4 TB Nextcloud and shares, 4TB for Windows Backup, 4 TB parity), i3-4130 and 8 GB of RAM, System on SSD.