This might sound pretty basic, but trying to think about the best approach for my need, and I’m confused about the Seafile app for Windows compared to the Seadrive (I know this is more like a Dropbox, GDrive, NextCloud client which lets you access the files from a client).
Why would you choose one over the other, or on which scenarios?
TIA
The Seafile app saves all data on disk and requires more disk space. The Seadrive app fetches files on demand and requires a network connection (unless the files are already cached).
The Nextcloud app allows you to choose between both variants.
Gotcha, so I can achieve both things with Seadrive, with the advantage of selecting which files will “live” on the server rather than on my or anyone’s PC.
What if I have a file on the Seafile server that has not been cached, and the server disk fails? I’m assuming I’d lose that file(s).
You can achieve both things with both apps, they are simply build for different use cases.
The Seafile client app includes a (virtual) filebrowser which lets you browse all libraries and files even if they are not synced (and saved to disk). But the filebrowser isn’t very convenient.
The Seadrive app on the other hand fetches files on demand but lets you specify directories to always keep in sync.
Exactly.