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Nextcloud USB Drive

Status: archived. I don't run Nextcloud anymore. The partitioning and fstab steps still apply to any Linux box, but the Nextcloud-specific framing is no longer current for me.

Setting up an external USB drive as the data directory for Nextcloud. Walks through partitioning, formatting, mounting, and fstab so the drive comes back automatically on reboot.

Preparing the drive for Nextcloud

Identify the intended drive

Use lsblk to identify the drive you want to use for Nextcloud. In this example, we’ll assume the drive is /dev/sda.

Partitioning the drive

1. Install parted

   sudo apt install -y parted
   

2. Create a GPT partition table

   sudo parted /dev/sda mklabel gpt
   

3. Create a partition

   sudo parted /dev/sda mkpart primary ext4 0% 100%
   

4. (Optional) Name the partition

   sudo parted /dev/sda name 1 my-data
   

5. Format the partition

   sudo mkfs.ext4 /dev/sda1
   

Mount the partition

1. Create a mount point

   sudo mkdir /nextcloud-data
   

2. Mount the partition

   sudo mount /dev/sda1 /nextcloud-data
   

3. Add to /etc/fstab for automatic mounting

   echo '/dev/sda1 /nextcloud-data ext4 defaults 0 0' | sudo tee -a /etc/fstab
   

4. Set proper permissions

   sudo chown www-data:www-data -R /nextcloud-data
   sudo chmod 0750 -R /nextcloud-data
   

Final steps

Once these steps are completed, you can use the USB drive as the data drive during the Nextcloud installation.