Questions about how Photo and File Galleries work with the SQL DB

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motionBlur Posted: Sun, Apr 22 2007 6:06 PM

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I want to keep my SQL DB as small as possible so it is easier to back up.  I have some questions about how the photo and file galleries work in relation to the DB. 

1. When I add photos to the galleries it gives me the option of either linking to the photo or uploading it.  Does it increase the size of my DB if I upload vs. link?
2. Does Community Server save the thumbnail copies of my images in the DB? 
   
3. Does anyone have advice on how to keep the DB as small as possible?

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DanBartels replied on Mon, Apr 23 2007 10:02 AM

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No, direct linking applies only to if CS should bypass asp.net for serving images, infact, it generally requires the original images to be stored on disk.

Thumbnails are always stored on the web server disk in the \photos\cache folder....

New post attachments, including images, are always uploaded into the database; into the cs_postattachements_temp table....  from there, if you have datastorestorage=true in your communityserver.config, they are transfered to the cs_postattachments table, and additionally if you have filesystemstorage=true, a copy is made on the local web server.

As images are requested if filesystemstorage=true, if the file does not exist on the local web server, it is created there (this is how cs populates all nodes of a web cluster)

By default however, CS has both datastore (database) storage and filesystem (web server) storage enabled.  To keep your database as small as posslbe, you need to disable data store storage;

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motionBlur replied on Mon, Apr 23 2007 11:23 PM

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Great.  Thanks for the info, Dan.

So if I understand correctly I can keep my database smaller by setting datastore storage to true and filesystem storage to false.  Where do I set those values?

Do you have any other recommendations for how I can keep my database as small as possible?
 

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DanBartels replied on Tue, Apr 24 2007 8:50 AM

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Just the opposite; this is acutally documented in the comments...  all of these settings can be found in the CommunityServer.config file at the root of your site...  You will want to set DataStoreStorage=False...  and FileSystemStorage=True on your PostAttachment configuration blocks, for Blogs, Files and Galleries.

Dan

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motionBlur replied on Wed, Apr 25 2007 1:40 AM

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Thanks, Dan.  This helps a lot.  I'll set my CommunityServer.config file that way.