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Seafile VPS specs
Hey, looking into setting up a small storage VPS with Seafile to share some stuff with friends and family (5-7 people). I am having some concerns regarding the specs the VPS should have (well except min. 100GB disc space), since I have no idea how CPU and RAM intensive Seafile is for a hand full of users. Usage is gonna be on the low end, but viewing files via the web interface should be performant. Maybe someone here is running Seafile and can share her experience
My two top choices right now are the Netcup RS 1000 G8 with 320GB SAS (84€/y) and the UltraVPS Storage Special 750GB (48€/y). The difference in storage does not matter for me, I would rather pick the cheaper option though (had good experience with both providers, if there are viable alternatives let me know).
Cheers
Comments
It is very lightweight. You shouldn't worry about system resources. I have it installed on a raspberry for a couple years now and it does what it's supposed to do. Don't have exact numbers to give you. Why don't you install it on a local vps to check it out yourself?
I have it installed in a couple of kimisufi machines (KS-3) and they are running for a couple years without any issue. In one I'm currently syncing about 800GB (of the 1.8 TB it gives you) and it's using 55% of the 3.85GB RAM it has. I'm using the Pro version (free for up to 3 users).
After testing Seafile (not pro version) and Nextcloud for a long time, I decided to use nextcloud. It has more functionality, is open source too and is way more lightweight.
Seafile uses ~2GB RAM when idling, so ultravps won't work. But depending on how much BW u need, netcup may be the better choice (80tb vs 5tb).
Also updating is easier on nextcloud.
Or do you need seafile for a specific reason?
I keep flip flopping between nextcloud and seafile, I like the fact the storage is standard on nextcloud (I.e I can access it directly on the node) but I find seafile seems to handle lots of smaller files better, and also there's seadrive.
Seafile mostly idles unless you are uploading via the webUI then it has to commit it on the server (they use a modified git based file structure)
Use seafile with s3 compatible backend, so you can use vps with small SSD and no need to back up (my pain point when I want to migrate my server), but be caution with s3 bandwidth though
+1 for nextcloud can really recommend it.
I use both for different ends but without a doubt seafile is much better in what it does, which is sync. Nextcloud is great to have as a personal cloud, if your are going to use the add-ons, mail, calendar and DAV. But the ability to map any folder on your drive (instead of having to keep all files in the same folder), the possibility to recover files, even if deleted or encrypted by ransomware, the way it deals with conflicts, it's speed, reliability, etc, put nextcloud sync to a corner... imo of course.
Have you played with seadrive yet? quite handy for machines with small SSD's
Yeah, I have it installed in almost all clients where I have seafile although due to its instability I haven't used it much (I've had some issues recently with it downloading entire folders without me asking - but hey, it's still beta). I miss more the ability to mount any folder as a drive which they removed in v6. But seafile has been a complete revolution in my life, I quite literally have everything in my life synced, not only my documents, pictures, etc.. but down to any folder on any of my workstations, including Live installs, removable drives, etc... It's an incredible piece of software!
Thanks for your help! Well the most important thing for me is the web UI, its not that much about syncing files, but being able to browse them. I initially thought Nextcloud is more of an performance hog, but apparently this is not true (Seafile using 2GB RAM idle sounds a bit worrying)? I did test both of them (rather quick), but not under load/with multiple users and the Seafile UI felt a bit more responsive.
I was able to run it on a 512M OVZ node as following specs.
512MB CVZ 512 / 256 MB 2 Cores 150 GB
I haven't used seafile yet, but if you find nextCloud sluggish, they have quite a large body of documentation on configuring it for performance depending on your use cases, data, and hardware. Nginx FCGI caching and PHP opcaching helped a lot for me.