Nextcloud vs. NAS (OpenMediaVault)?

Question

Which would you rather use on your Raspberry Pi to share files over the network? And what are the advantages and disadvantages?

lamanini · Answer

Well, a Raspberry isn't that powerful. I think I would just share it myself via SMB or something like that to save as many resources as possible.

iqa1x · Answer

Nextclud is especially useful if you have the device open to the outside world and often want to share files with external parties via link or want to synchronize mobile devices.

If you only want to share files over the network via CIFS/NFS, a traditional NAS is sufficient. If necessary, you can also install Syncthing or something similar for synchronization.

The Pi has the disadvantage that, as far as I know, it doesn't have a fast disk interface. Only the newest ones support USB3, but not M.2 or SATA. Older models also only support 100 Mbit networking.

thomasao · Answer

I'm a computer scientist and have been using NextCloud for quite some time now, and my experience with it has been very positive. It's supported virtually everywhere and is one of the most secure storage solutions available today.

However, I've stopped storing my data locally for a long time, and now store it online so I can access it from anywhere. I ran my own virtual server for this purpose for a while, but have now switched to using a ready-made NextCloud configuration because it's simply much less hassle. I highly recommend these services: https://www.hetzner.com/de/storage/storage-box

Hetzner offers really good value for money and also offers excellent service. I used to have a virtual server there and was very satisfied. Incidentally, I'm not affiliated with them in any way, and I don't gain any advantage by mentioning them.

grakavii · Answer

So, if you want to access data externally, you should use Nextcloud or something similar. I wouldn't make SMB publicly accessible. However, you can also simply run both and use the NAS as the storage backend for Nextcloud. This way, for example, I have my SMB shares on the internal network and exactly the same ones in Nextcloud, just accessed via Nextcloud.