[noob] 2 questions about copying files between different Mega accounts

[Nucleus]

Hello all. I wanted to know if I can use rclone to take the contents of one Mega account, encrypt or decrypt them, and copy them to a second Mega account. I read that rclone supports server-side copying but I assume that wouldn't work in my case because they would both be Mega accounts and that I would need a seedbox or VPS to avoid downloading/uploading the files from my PC, is that right? Thanks for any guidance.

[asdffdsa (jojothehumanmonkey)]

hello and welcome to the forum,

@Nucleus

wanted to know if I can use rclone to take the contents of one Mega account, encrypt or decrypt them, and copy them to a second Mega account.

yes, create two remotes for mega, mega01 and mega02

@Nucleus

server-side copying

i do not know, but could try a copy a single file using

rclone copy mega01:file.ext mega02: --server-side-across-configs -vv --dry-run

@Nucleus

I would need a seedbox or VPS to avoid downloading/uploading

well, if --server-side-across-configs works, then could use your local machine.
else use a cheap vm, blackhost is a popular choice in the forum.

i have the cheapest unlimited bandwidth vm, $2.99/month
very, very slow at just 10 Mbps, tho over a month, up to 3.3TiB transferred per month.

[kapitainsky]

if not a secret what is this vm? Understandably not falcon speed but price is great. And can have its use.

[asdffdsa (jojothehumanmonkey)]

https://black.host/cheap-unmetered-vps-hosting

root@BH:~# uname -a
Linux BH 5.4.0-131-generic #147-Ubuntu SMP Fri Oct 14 17:07:22 UTC 2022 x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux
root@BH:~# lsb_release -a
No LSB modules are available.
Distributor ID: Ubuntu
Description:    Ubuntu 20.04.5 LTS
Release:        20.04
Codename:       focal

root@BH:~# rclone version
rclone v1.62.2
- os/version: ubuntu 20.04 (64 bit)
- os/kernel: 5.4.0-131-generic (x86_64)
- os/type: linux
- os/arch: amd64
- go/version: go1.20.2
- go/linking: static
- go/tags: none

[asdffdsa (jojothehumanmonkey)]

@Nucleus

encrypt or decrypt them, and copy them to a second Mega account.

acutally, thinking about it more.
if you decrypt or encrypt a file, that will never be server-side.

rclone itself has to (de|en)crypt the files

[Nucleus]

@asdffdsa

acutally, thinking about it more.
if you decrypt or encrypt a file, that will never be server-side.

rclone itself has to (de|en)crypt the files

Thanks for taking the time answer. It wont work server-side but should it still work with a seedbox like the one you suggested? Like:

Mega01 -> seedbox -> encrypt/decrypt in seedbox -> Mega02

A different question, when rclone encrypts/decrypts a file, does it do so in small chunks and transmit those right away or does it make a complete encrypted/decrypted file before sending it to the second remote. I ask because I noticed that BlackHost only gives 10BG storage on the $3 plan.

I have a number of files that are >5GB and a couple that are >10GB in size. Could BlackHost or other provider with similar storage handle that or do I need to look for a seedbox with more storage.

Thanks again.

[kapitainsky]

As per crypt documentation encryption is done with 64KiB chunks - so hopefully this is how data will be processed.

But for cases like this I would only trust 100% real life test. Start with one of this big files and watch diskspace.

[asdffdsa (jojothehumanmonkey)]

@Nucleus

It wont work server-side but should it still work with a seedbox like the one you suggest

correct.

@Nucleus

when rclone encrypts/decrypts a file, does it do so in small chunks and transmit those right away or does it make a complete encrypted/decrypted file before sending it to the second remote. I ask because I noticed that BlackHost only gives 10BG storage on the $3 plan.

correct, rclone sync|copy|move uses chunks stored in memory and zero storage space.

basically,

1. read chunk from mega01 into memory
2. crypt chunk in memory
3. write crypted chunk from memory to mega02

[Nucleus]

@kapitainsky

As per crypt documentation encryption is done with 64KiB chunks - so hopefully this is how data will be processed.

But for cases like this I would only trust 100% real life test. Start with one of this big files and watch diskspace.

@asdffdsa

correct, rclone sync|copy|move uses chunks stored in memory and zero storage space.

Thank you very much for the answers provided. I hadn't even downloaded rclone yet because I'm not completely comfortable using command line tools. I'm going to download it now and start playing around with it. Thanks again.