Would it be reasonable to expect a Raspberry Pi 4 to run Nextcloud and manage a photo backup of +100 Gb?

The Raspberry Pi is from 2020, running Raspbian, and it was used as an intervalometer with the help of gphoto2 (meaning no great efforts were demanded from it).

The pictures are on two external hard drives

*1Tb WesternDigital SATA (bought second hand, but “like new” according to the sales guy.

*320Gb WesternDigital SATA (inherited from an AcerOne laptop once I realized it could not even handle lubuntu)

My very limited knowledge on the subject tells me I need to:

*Get rid of Raspbian and install Raspberry Pi OS

*Install Nextcloud (and upgrade an existing account)

*Upload +100 Gb

Would the aforementioned steps allow me to access the files on Fedora/Kubuntu (two separate hard drives on a desktop) and openSUSUE (on a laptop)?

I’m also testing a filen.io account and a sync.com account. All three services (NextCloud, Filen, and Sync) work as I expect on an Ipad.

Filen and Nextcloud have Linux applications, and both have been working without problems on test backups of 100 pictures.

Sync is CANADIAN but not Linux friendly (I tried Wine, didn’t work, gave up)… I’m accessing a free account via Firefox only, so I’m not counting on them for this journey.

So, long story short, I want to back up my files (mostly pictures/scans and some pfd documents) on someone else’s computer and locally.

Now the question. Can anyone recommend a guide to achieve what I want?

I’m a cook by trade without any technical (software/hardware) training who has been using Linux (openSUSE, Ubuntu, Arch, Mint) since 2012. Please forgive any mistakes on terminology.

I included a picture of my intervalo-Frankenstein-meter from 2020.

Thank You.

  • @justblackcoffeeplease@lemmy.caOPEnglish
    1•7 hours ago

    Do you need nextcloud?

    I am looking for an alternative to proton drive. It does not seem like the Linux app is happening anytime soon, and I want to be able to have a backup of the pictures I duplicate and edit without having to download the file and upload it after the changes I make.

    • filen.io does that, but the servers are on the other side of the Atlantic.

    • sync.com does not have a Linux app either.

    • google drive and mega allow that, but I do not use those services.

    • @MangoPenguin@lemmy.blahaj.zoneEnglish
      2•7 hours ago

      Well one thing to point out is nextcloud and other sync programs are not backups, they’re sync software.

      But syncthing would work fine for keeping changes in sync between systems.

      • @justblackcoffeeplease@lemmy.caOPEnglish
        2•5 hours ago

        I might have a misconception of what back up is.

        Right before writing this, I used an ipad to take a picture of one of my cats. That ipad has the filen, nextcloud, and sync apps. I added the same photo to a test folder on each of the services I just mentioned. I can see the picture in the test folder of each service on my desktop.

        Those are all free accounts, yes. I am not a paying customer yet. If that is not a backup, I don’t know what to call it.

        • @MangoPenguin@lemmy.blahaj.zoneEnglish
          2•5 hours ago

          Basically a backup is a point in time snapshot that you can restore from. So you’d run backups daily or multiple times per day and can easily get back deleted or changed files.

          Whereas with a sync service if you delete that file or change it, the original is gone and you can’t get it back. Some will have versions and trash cans, which gives you some limited ability to restore.

    • CarrotsHaveEars
      1•7 hours ago

      In which way do you plan to transfer your photos to the backup storage? In the picture I can see a camera and I assume it uses an SD card. I would, if I were you:

      1. Buy a consumer grade storage device with USB port, like those desktop storage towers from WestDigital
      2. Build a RAID with it if the data is important enough
      3. Connect it to my computer and just run rsync

      Some storage tower even comes with an Ethernet port and a web interface. It’s practically a personal “cloud”.

      Nextcloud is resource heavy, slow, hard to setup, and hard to backup/restore. This is from someone who has been using it from when it was Owncloud.

      • @justblackcoffeeplease@lemmy.caOPEnglish
        2•4 hours ago

        In which way do you plan to transfer your photos to the backup storage?

        The pictures I currently have and want to save are on an external hard drive and on proton drive. Any (future) pictures I take are:

        • sent to proton drive from my iphone, or
        • transferred from the camera’s SD card to my computer and then added to proton drive using firefox.

        Because proton does not have a Linux app, the problem with this workflow is that I need to download every picture I want to edit, and then upload it back to proton.

        The options I have are:

        • switch to windows (that is never going to happen).

        • switch to mac (I am temped, but the idea of having to buy a new computer every two years because they become obsolete bothers me a little).

        • stay on Linux and use nextcloud on an iphone, an ipad, a dell optiplex 7010 and a toshoba satellite (both with 4Gb RAM).

        In the picture I can see a camera and I assume it uses an SD card

        That was just a picture of the RPi4 I want to use for this project. Back in 2020 I ran gphoto2 on it and used it as an intervalometer.

        Your suggested setup would allow two hard drives to be synchronized, but the web archive (proton) would still need constant downloads and uploads.

        Free filen and nextcloud accounts have allowed me to do what I want… take a picture with the phone, upload it, edit it on that service’s folder, see the changes on every other device.