How to migrate from DigitalOcean Spaces to Quake AI

DigitalOcean Spaces and Quake AI both use S3-compatible APIs. rclone copies data directly between endpoints with no local staging required.

Service mapping#

Prerequisites#

• A Quake AI account with S3 credentials
• A DigitalOcean Spaces access key (generated in the DigitalOcean Control Panel under API > Spaces Keys)
• rclone installed (v1.65+)

Before you start#

Read the migration planning guide for the S3/Swift compatibility matrix.

DigitalOcean-specific considerations:

• Egress fees: DigitalOcean includes an outbound transfer allowance per Spaces subscription and charges per-GiB for overage. For large migrations, estimate your transfer size against your plan allowance. Confirm current allowances and rates on the DigitalOcean Spaces pricing page.
• Cold Storage buckets: If your Space uses the Cold Storage tier (generally available since December 2025), retrieval fees apply when you read data above your monthly free allowance, and a 30-day minimum retention policy charges early deletions for the days remaining. Cold Storage also has lower request rate limits and is not available in the BLR1 region. Factor retrieval costs into your egress estimate. Confirm current Cold Storage terms on the DigitalOcean Spaces pricing page.
• CDN: If your Space has the built-in CDN enabled, this feature is not available on Quake AI. Front your Quake AI bucket with a CDN (Cloudflare, CloudFront) if you need edge caching. See CloudFront CDN setup.
• Ceph backend: DigitalOcean Spaces uses Ceph, similar to Quake AI's Swift S3 gateway. Standard S3 operations are compatible between the two.
• Space naming: DigitalOcean calls each bucket a "Space." The rclone workflow is identical to any S3-compatible source.
• Subscription billing: DigitalOcean Spaces billing starts when the first Space is created and ends when all Spaces are deleted. Factor this into your decommission timeline.

Configure rclone remotes#

Add both remotes to ~/.config/rclone/rclone.conf:

[do]
type = s3
provider = DigitalOcean
access_key_id = YOUR_DO_ACCESS_KEY
secret_access_key = YOUR_DO_SECRET_KEY
endpoint = nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com
acl = private

[quakeai]
type = s3
provider = Ceph
access_key_id = YOUR_RUMBLE_ACCESS_KEY
secret_access_key = YOUR_RUMBLE_SECRET_KEY
endpoint = object.us-east-2.rumble.cloud
acl = private

Replace the DigitalOcean endpoint with the slug for your Space's region. Check the DigitalOcean regional availability page for the current list of Spaces regions and their endpoint slugs. Replace the Quake AI endpoint with your region.

Verify both remotes:

rclone lsd do:
rclone lsd quakeai:

Create the destination bucket#

rclone mkdir quakeai:my-bucket

Run the migration#

Initial copy#

rclone copy do:my-source-space quakeai:my-bucket \
  --transfers 16 \
  --checkers 32 \
  --s3-chunk-size 64M \
  --progress \
  --log-file migration.log \
  --log-level INFO

Delta syncs#

rclone sync do:my-source-space quakeai:my-bucket \
  --transfers 16 \
  --checkers 32 \
  --progress

Schedule daily until cutover.

Verify the migration#

rclone size do:my-source-space
rclone size quakeai:my-bucket

Check file integrity:

rclone check do:my-source-space quakeai:my-bucket \
  --one-way \
  --log-file check.log

See the validation checklist for the full procedure.

Cut over#

1. Run a final rclone sync.
2. Update your application's S3 endpoint configuration. See update application endpoint.
3. If you were using the DO Spaces CDN, configure an external CDN (Cloudflare, CloudFront) pointing at your Quake AI bucket.
4. Keep the DigitalOcean Space for 30 days as a rollback target.
5. Delete all Spaces to stop DigitalOcean Spaces billing.

See also#

• Plan your migration: compatibility matrix, validation checklist
• Migration tools comparison: rclone configuration and alternatives
• Update application endpoint: swap SDK config to Quake AI