More space vs. losing old attachments

[Razorwing]

Of course that elusive "someone" could upload all the attachments to photobucket / filefront and hook them up in the post, but no-one's going to do that. I'm certainly not going to, and I wouldn't expect of anyone else to do it either, so it's not an option. Neither is modifications to the forum system.

I would love a gigabyte-sized dropfolder on a reliable server where I could just FTP all the attachments and then create a link page. If that could be arranged then we'd have a public and permanent backup of the attachments for when a person reads an old post and wants to check out the file. Backing them up per se isn't a problem at all, it's finding a place to upload thousands of large files without hassle. The only way that could happen is if someone with an infinite amount of data storage space shared access to their server with me.

Originally posted by Richard
Is this for all the BC projects too, or just the actual Silgrad project?

There wouldn't be any discerning of the attachments, only their age would matter. (That's why I added the announcement to the Common Room board as well)

[TheImperialDragon]

What about that wayback machine used for the archive? How does all that stuff work?

[Razorwing]

Originally posted by TheImperialDragon
What about that wayback machine used for the archive? How does all that stuff work?

They restrict themselves to saving images, and half the time they're missing. I pieced together the design of the old website from half a dozen saves for instance.

[Haplo]

I would strongly suggest you delete your older files, as well as force images over say 100KB (just a random number) to be posted on Imageshack or Photobucket if you have a whole album of them. (I personally prefer Imageshack)

As an administrator for another large mod project, I know what it's like to sift through thousands of old files, some illegal, some rediculously large, some never even viewed/downloaded/used, just to find one file needed for progress. With me, cleaning out old files is more of an ongoing thing than a one-shot gig, but then again, I have no idea what kind of numbers you have in that department.

[TheImperialDragon]

Well, I think at this point it's pretty obvious which way we're going, so I say go with it. Furthermore, we're going to have backups of the old attachments, so what's there to lose? Just add to each post the filename of the attachment, then save it, remove it. If someone requires the file (for some reason or another), they can request it.

[Razorwing]

Originally posted by TheImperialDragon
Furthermore, we're going to have backups of the old attachments, so what's there to lose? Just add to each post the filename of the attachment, then save it, remove it. If someone requires the file (for some reason or another), they can request it.

I'd download them over FTP though, which is a part of the reason their removal would be indiscriminate (I wouldn't know where they came from without spending time investigating each one).

[Dureiku]

Originally posted by Razorwing
I would love a gigabyte-sized dropfolder on a reliable server where I could just FTP all the attachments and then create a link page. If that could be arranged then we'd have a public and permanent backup of the attachments for when a person reads an old post and wants to check out the file. Backing them up per se isn't a problem at all, it's finding a place to upload thousands of large files without hassle. The only way that could happen is if someone with an infinite amount of data storage space shared access to their server with me.

How much bandwidth would you estimate needing, because I have plenty of storage space on my server and can make you an ftp account. Drop an email to d.wolf AT necrid DOT net if you're interested.

Originally posted by Razorwing

Originally posted by TheImperialDragon
What about that wayback machine used for the archive? How does all that stuff work?

They restrict themselves to saving images, and half the time they're missing. I pieced together the design of the old website from half a dozen saves for instance.

That's not 100% accurate. They do indeed have a number of zip/rar files in their archive. I think the size of the file and the number of off-site links to it has something to do with whether they store it or not. Let's just say you can go view "http://darnim.silgrad.com/*" on the WayBack machine. Then go to the last page of results and you'll see the file darnimwatch.rar... which is certaintly not an image.

It's certaintly not reliable though as to what it will (or won't) archive. Sometimes it won't even archive all the html pages...

[Ysne]

Akavir has been using as little of Silgrad's storage space as possible. We've been putting mods up on tes sourse and planet es. Our modellers have been putting there images up on other locations with links. Occasionally they do post pictures in threads.

We've only been here since last September. I don't think we have anything that would be affected by the deletion of old files.

[Razorwing]

Luckily all signs point towards the fact that we'll get access to a server location with practically infinite data storage space which should keep us in the clear for, oh, ten years or so. It will mean the old attachments will be removed, but at the same time permanently available for download on the other server location 24/7.

[Gyssar]

Oi, I know I'm a bit late on this, but I have about 40TB of free space hooked up to a 50 Gbps bandwisth sitting on a colocation server.

The server is powerful enough to set up a permanent file-sharing service for the whole project.