Creative solutions for managing attachment storage

[Bonsai Coder]

My current SSD cloud host plan only has me with 100 GB of storage... and my attachments are creeping up to 65 GB+. Add in the database and archives, and I am running tight on space.

What are some things people with larger boards do with their attachments other than just paying for more SSD storage?

 

[sbj]

I would say they run an image optimizer to save up to 20-40% disk space.
And they probably offload their attachments to S3 storage.
Take a look into that.

 

[Kirby]

We don't use cloud hosting (way too expensive) and we don't store all attachments on SSD (simply doesn't make sense to keep old files that are "never" accessed on high performance storage)

 

[Abraham54]

I have no such problems on my server.
My provider has not set maximums on server SSD storage!

At the moment I have three websites running (Plus).

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[Bonsai Coder]

simply doesn't make sense to keep old files that are "never" accessed on high performance storage)

In my case (a bonsai site) it is really important for people to be able to revisit images that can be 10+ years old - because they are looking at images or threads that track the development of trees over long periods of time. It is a strength (and weakness) of having a large archive of photos of trees in development.

So if I understand you correctly, you periodically offload some of your attachments to secondary storage(?) Or do you outright delete them?
(1) How do you manage the file transfer process - is it automatic or manual?
(2) How do you handle the file access code from the xenforo side?

 

[Abraham54]

Most images on my forum are hosted externally on IMGDUMPER - a very good and free hoster for images provided by the Dutch provider TransIP.
Even images hosted there 8 years ago are still present.

 

[Kirby]

So if I understand you correctly, you periodically offload some of your attachments to secondary storage(?) Or do you outright delete them?
(1) How do you manage the file transfer process - is it automatic or manual?
(2) How do you handle the file access code from the xenforo side?

We are using edge proxies (nginx) that cache content (attachments, images, CSS, JS, etc.) on SSD while the backend storage is a cluster filesystem (GlusterFS) where the nodes store content on (cheap, NL-SAS) HDD