My NAS died. It was hosting the datadirectory of my nextcloud server instance (30.0.2). All the rest is fine: web server, nextcloud code, database all running ok.
Yes datadir is backed up but restoring from a remote site is going to take ages.
I was wondering: could I run nextcloud somehow in degraded mode, i.e. without datadir or with another datadir, while I restore the old datadir? That way I could at least have access to calendar and contacts.
I’m afraid of pointing the instance to another new folder as 1. I don’t know if that works, 2. I’m afraid of metadata diverging so I can’t use my restored data anymore (or maybe would have to restore the database as well).
I wouldn’t suggest it. You’ll have a fairly corrupt filecache when you’re done probably.
However, if you do not use any shares[1] you may be able to get away with it and then just run a files:scan when you do have the actual contents of your datadirectory restored onto your system.
Though if the goal is just to view (not edit) your calendars/contacts, you could do it and then restore the database I suppose.
Yes datadir is backed up but restoring from a remote site is going to take ages.
Purely in the spirit of providing constructive feedback for future incidents like this, if at all possible store 3 copies of all your data:
original
on-site snapshot
off-site snapshot
Essentially what is known as the “3-2-1 backup” strategy.
That’ll make all but the most dire recovery scenarios much more rapid and convenient. Also the on-site snapshot can often be more frequent and/or have a different retention policy since it’ll be faster/have different economics/etc.
[1] Possibly other things too, but that’s the biggie that you’ll lose. Still would not recommend it.