Nextcloud box updates: Raspberry Pi 3, Nextcloud 12 and looking for a new provider

The Nextcloud box is almost one year old now, so it is time for some updates! Today we announce that Raspberry Pi3 compatible images are available on our download server, giving users the option to go for hardware which offers a significant performance improvement. On top of that, by the end of next week users can expect Nextcloud 12 to begin appearing on their Nextcloud Box, bringing more performance improvements as well as many new features!

Nextcloud Box & Raspberry Pi 3

Raspberry Pi is a dream tool if you consider protecting your privacy and owning your data at home. This tiny computer is extremely cheap, powerful and can be put wherever you want at home. From an ownership point of view, running Nextcloud on a Raspberry Pi is one of the best alternatives. You know exactly where your data are stored, you can add as much storage as you need, and you manage your data with a fully open source solution! Full control, from hardware to software. Running Nextcloud on a Raspberry Pi has always been possible but it was a bit tricky. So last year, we announced a specific Raspberry Pi 2 image along with the Nextcloud box. It was a good first step, but the Raspberry Pi 3 is available, and our partner Collabora has been working on an image compatible with the new Pi.

The Raspberry Pi 3 brings a massive increase in CPU performance to the Pi, going from four 32 bit ARM Cortex A7 cores at 900mhz to four more powerful 64-bit Cortex A53 cores at 1200mhz. RAM speed has also been doubled and the end result is that in most benchmarks, the Pi3 performs about twice as well as the Pi2.

It is now out, and you can already download our image for Raspberry Pi 3! With the Nextcloud box, you can enjoy better performance and hardware for your out-of-the-box Nextcloud instance. In order to use the Nextcloud box with a Raspberry Pi 3, you need to flash our image on an SD card, put it in the Nextcloud box, create a user and… done! Have a look at our documentation here.

You can download the 1GB large RPI3 image here (md5sum).

Of course, remember that the Nextcloud Box kit comes without a Pi and it is designed to also work with the oDroid C2 for even better performance than the Raspberry Pi3. Our software does not support the oDroid C2 but you can find excellent tutorials on how to run it on the website of community member Carsten Rieger.

Nextcloud 12 out of the Box later this month

You liked Nextcloud 11? You will love Nextcloud 12! We built this release with even higher concerns in terms of stability and security, and with a bunch of great new features and security hardenings. This release is focused on collaboration: partnering with our friends from Collabora, we put LibreOffice in your Nextcloud, allowing you to work and share from any device. Sharing has been improved, too. You can now have a unique public share link with multiple recipients and permissions or provide a secure space for your recipients to drop files into. We also closely integrated Spreed, a secure and powerful video chat which now allows screen sharing, documents and presentations sharing, and video calls through any browser, without requiring Flash Player! The interface was also improved, following a refined design pioneered by a community member. Better UI, better sharing, collaboration-wise… Home users using Nextcloud for work will enjoy the attention brought to context and productivity. Learn more about Collaboration in Nextcloud 12!

Security has also remained a primary focus:

• brute force protection and rate limiting are now available for app developers
• improved authentication for clients and third parties
• stay tuned for 12.0.1, which features a protection against ransomware!

Learn more in our blog about security in Nextcloud 12!
Nextcloud 12 has brought a lot of new features and improvements, besides security hardenings and improved performance. And soon you can enjoy all this out of the box! Your instance will update automatically the coming two weeks! If you want to get involved making the snap better, faster and easier – get involved on GitHub here!

On a less pleasant note, we are looking for somebody to continue production of the Nextcloud Box with more urgency since WD labs have unfortunately shut down. The Nextcloud Box was always meant as a proof of concept but despite the humble goals we’ve sold over 1500 since we announced it last year. We are proud of this achievement and we’re happy to tell you that there are still about 300 left in the store. So, if you want to purchase one, be quick, as they have become limited edition! For those of you interested in taking over development and distribution of the box, let us know in the forums and comments below or use our contact form.

Picture: Wikimedia.org, Nico Kaiser, Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic