I’m looking for a solution for moving different files between several Windows (Windows 10 for clients and Windows Server 2019 for storage server) and Android devices. Right now i can only move files through like SFTP and shared (between 2 Windows systems) folders, which is very inconvenient.
Is there any better solution for doing it? “Just move to linux and install X” - is not one.
I’d probably just setup an SMB share on a NAS and then map it to file explorer and whatever is supported by your android device. Should be a lot more convenient than using SFTP. This assumes the devices are all on the same network, however, this can be circumvented by connecting them all to the SMB share network via VPN.
There isn’t any free cloud services. There is a cost associated with it. Such as privacy and when the vendor decides to change the allotted amount. You can get free cloud storage via Google Drive, Microsoft, and Dropbox and you can use their respective client apps to do what you want, however, they all have varying amounts and limits for their free tier so I’d thoroughly research that prior to using them.
2 Likes
By “cloud service” i meant something that i can host locally (should’ve clarified that from the very beginning), like, maybe Nextcloud or somf.
The device that will be storing the data is the Windows system (more details in 2 other topics i started), which is basically EPYC + disk shelf.
I used SFTP mostly because file transfer speeds through my SoftEther VPN were otherwise appaling (like 600kbytes/s with 100Mbit/s connection). SFTP bumped it up to at least 1Mbyte/s.
2 Likes
That’s very bad. Services like Next Cloud will use protocols like SFTP, SMB, WebDAV, etc to handle the sync. So I dont believe that will resolve your issue. I use wireguard and can easily get 100 Mbyte/s(worst I’ve seen on my PC) on a 1 Gbit/s connection with SMB. On my phone with a 5G connection I average around 20 Mbyets/s from my SMB share.
This is sounding more like a configuration issues on the VPN server/service or maybe the bandwith for the endpoint. I’d fully troubleshoot the connection speed issue first before using something like nextcloud as I do not believe it will resolve your issue.
Edit: Fixed Mbit and Mbyte for clarity.
2 Likes
It’s really weird, since all the device can utilise full 100Mbit to the “outside internet”, but it grinds to a halt if i use either SFTP or especially shared folders.
The only time i get decent speeds is when i use direct link between PC and that server (which is “40Gbit”, while only around like 32GBits are actually possible due to PCIe limitation).
Softether forum suggest that the issue is the latency i have between devices (ping averages around 90ms, and they claim that SMB works efficiently only with 0.1ms)
1 Like
Hmmmm… I’d make sure the file share is properly configured as well. As I said earlier it could also be the configuration for your VPN. I haven’t messed around with SoftEther VPN as I found it to time consuming for my schedule. So not sure what bells and whistles you can play with, but it wouldn’t hurt to take a look at the encryption and how it interacts with those protocols.
IMO, best to try and resolve the problem now as you are using a pretty universally used protocol before adding another layer of complexity on it and making troubleshooting more complicated.
1 Like
Measured transfer speeds with the VPN’s built-in tool:
(Btw, it should be 100/100Mbit full-duplex link)
Apparently, total throughput with 1 TCP “to”, and 1 TCP “from” is only about half of the physical one.
Total throughput with 16 TCP “to”, and 16 TCP “from” is about 75Mbits, so like 25% overhead from the VPN (though, it’s only 34Mbits and 40Mbits for download and upload respectively).
Total throughput with 0 TCP “to”, and 32 TCP “from” is still only 37Mbits.
Total throughput with 32 TCP “to”, and 0 TCP “from” is the same 40Mbits.
Right now i set up iSCSI service on the server and on both PC and my laptop.
It seems like i do have access to the same drive and files on it from both devices.
Speed, though, is really weird: Basically it ran at max HDD speed (200MB/s) for some time, then sharply dropped to 1-2MB/s.
1 Like
You could use Syncthing to sync files in a given folder between different machines. It should be faster than iSCS, FTP or SMB. It also keeps the file syncronized, as the name implies. No need to install a server anywhere, just install the program on all the machines and decide which folders to sync.
4 Likes
Aaaaand it was a terrible idea. iSCSI is for building SANs, and is not made for multiple users accessing the same drive.
So i went back to making a proper SMB shared folder. Worked well enough, and now uses the fastest link possible (So 40GBit if it’s PC to server).
1 Like
I’m a fan of this idea. Keeps everything local, and Syncthing has a Windows version.
2 Likes
Another +1 here, used it for years without issue (well, human, but not the S/W itself).
2 Likes
Not a Windows engineer but shouldn’t you able to combine SMB and Direct access so you can access the files from anywhere?
Also yea, Nextcloud is more like a private cloud solution.
1 Like
Alright, i found the exact solution i was looking for - HFS.
Got it set up on my local network, and boom - it already gives me 3MB/s for downloads over VPN
I’m quite sure i’ll be able to set it up for local-local connection too, for even faster transfer speeds.
1 Like
Direct Access would allow you to not need a VPN iirc.
1 Like
I’m using it anyway, so it’s not a big deal.
For “really direct access” i can just use that SMB share i created earlier. ~26GBit/s measured.
2 Likes
+1 to syncthing in multinode config, where one node acts as central server.
That way you get desired functionality without many headaches.
- Syncthing is designed to be encrypted p2p sync tool
- dropbox-like fuctionality is non-obvious use case (syncthing client will not guide you to through this kind setup), but otherwise easy to setup once you kn ow what you actually want
- its reasonably secure to allow to exposed to open internet
- you can avoid vpn performance drop this way
- it really plug and play, even for OSS
Ideal solution is trunas server with syncthing app deloyed, acting as central server, all other client consume share from that node.
1 Like
I don’t have a white IP address for the physical server itself. For me, VPN kills way too many birds with one stone: the VPN service itself, having RDP to any windows system, file sharing, music streaming…
Truenas, afaik, requires linux to be installed on the main server (or i guess, it IS a sort of linux itself), which is an absolute no-go for me.
As long as HFS will work - i don’t really want to look for anything else.
1 Like
Is there a reason you can’t just create a network share?
1 Like
I already used that “SMB Network share” earlier, but it won’t do for transfers from/to like a phone (or at least it won’t be as convenient as HFS).
I didn’t disable it either, so i can still do “40Gbit” transfers between PC and the server.
1 Like