914world is showing its age Options

[SirAndy]

914world is showing its age (IMG:style_emoticons/default/sad.gif)

The recent outage was not due to some cyber attack or malicious plotting from the darkest depths of the interwebs.

It was simply due to the forum software being overwhelmed by the amount of data stored here combined with the amount of traffic we're receiving.

Fact is, the software we're running on is more than 20 years old, written at a time when the internet was a much different place.
It was never meant to run for this long or handle the amount of data we have accumulated.


So what are our options?

- Keep going until everything crashes and burns into a pile.

- Start over fresh with a new server with new forum software. We'd be losing everything we have.

- Try to fix some of the issues by re-writing parts of the software, reworking the database and changing the way uploaded images are stored. Maybe even update the server itself while we're in there.


While the last choice seems the obvious one, the problem is that i do have a day-job that needs my attention and my time is limited.
It would also mean i'd probably have to shut down the site for a longer period of time, maybe a week or two, and maybe more than once.
(IMG:style_emoticons/default/dry.gif)

[Krieger]

I have a suggestion to reduce storage space and annoying repetition. Too many people when replying to a thread needlessly recopy photos. Andy, if you could make it so copying photos is a more deliberate action,would it save space here and now as well as the planning for the next gen?

[SirAndy]

I have a suggestion to reduce storage space and annoying repetition. Too many people when replying to a thread needlessly recopy photos. Andy, if you could make it so copying photos is a more deliberate action,would it save space here and now as well as the planning for the next gen?

It's not the storage space (hard-drive space is cheap these days) or the size of the images but rather the actual number of images and how they are stored that is causing issues.

As for quoting images in a post, that does not create a duplicate image for us, the quote simply contains a link to the image in the original post.
(IMG:style_emoticons/default/bye1.gif)

[Chris914n6]

It's not the storage space (hard-drive space is cheap these days) or the size of the images but rather the actual number of images and how they are stored that is causing issues.

As for quoting images in a post, that does not create a duplicate image for us, the quote simply contains a link to the image in the original post.
(IMG:style_emoticons/default/bye1.gif)

So how hard is it to upload all new pics to a new folder and keep links to the old folder?
I would think you could get links to search the new folder first then the old until success.
Or something like, if date before 1-22-25 use /images else use /images2

Just brainstorming something simple...

[SirAndy]

It's not the storage space (hard-drive space is cheap these days) or the size of the images but rather the actual number of images and how they are stored that is causing issues.

As for quoting images in a post, that does not create a duplicate image for us, the quote simply contains a link to the image in the original post.
(IMG:style_emoticons/default/bye1.gif)

So how hard is it to upload all new pics to a new folder and keep links to the old folder?
I would think you could get links to search the new folder first then the old until success.
Or something like, if date before 1-22-25 use /images else use /images2

Just brainstorming something simple...

Yes, that's basically the solution.
Have a folder for each year and month so the number of images per folder remains manageable.

/uploads/2024/10/
/uploads/2024/11/
/uploads/2024/12/
/uploads/2025/01/


Not too hard to do actually, but only an option if we have full control of the forum software.
(IMG:style_emoticons/default/idea.gif)

[campbellcj]

Yes, that's basically the solution.
Have a folder for each year and month so the number of images per folder remains manageable.

/uploads/2024/10/
/uploads/2024/11/
/uploads/2024/12/
/uploads/2025/01/


Not too hard to do actually, but only an option if we have full control of the forum software.
(IMG:style_emoticons/default/idea.gif)

This came up in my day job as well (enterprise software) and we resolved it the same way - have a customer with over 5 million photos/docs linked to database records. There is also the option of storing blob/raw data in the database but there are tradeoffs.

I'll be glad to pitch in too any way I can help and look forward to "next-gen" 914world!