Should I use GridFS or some other method to create a file sharing app?

Question

I am currently beginning work on a file sharing app for my company. A simple form to upload a file, the user is then given a download URL and can past that on to anyone so they can download the file (Similar to products such as WeTransfer).

However I am struggling on decided how to do it. I have been playing with MongoDB and GridFS. I have successfully used multer and multer-gridfs-storage to upload files directly into my database. I am struggling to get them to download as I don't know that much about GridFS.

const storage = new GridFsStorage({
url: 'mongodb://localhost:27017/fileUpload',
file: (req, file) => {
    return new Promise((resolve, reject) => {
        crypto.randomBytes(16, (err, buf) => {
            if (err) {
                return reject(err)
            }
            const filename = buf.toString('hex') + path.extname(file.originalname);
            const fileInfo = {
                filename: filename,
                bucketName: 'uploads'
            };
            resolve(fileInfo)
        });
    });
}
}); 

const upload = multer({ storage })

But it got me thinking is this the best way of doing this or would there be a better why or serving those download files (to download to a users computer).

Any advice is greatly appreciated!

score 1 · Accepted Answer · answered Feb 11 '22 at 17:56

GridFS is a specification for storing and retrieving files that exceed the BSON document size limit of 16 MB. GridFS is a convention implemented by all MongoDB drivers that stores binary data across many smaller documents. The binaries are split into the chunks and then the chunks are stored in collections created by GridFS.

Having said that, given the presented use cases i would highly recommend using media server for storage as given the application landscape, that makes a more economical, viable and scalable solution.

Having said that, I would generally, avoid putting BLOBs in the database if there are other storage options that cost less as using a database as BLOB store is generally not a cost optimised solution. Sure, there are valid reasons for storing blobs in the database, but given the application’s use case (it being media intensive), use the media server for file storage, and databases for data structures.

In such cases, It is often easy to get "cost unoptimized" with time. Plus the database size would grow exponentially with time, bringing it's own challenges with RAM (WiredTiger Cache) management.

All in all - if it was me - I would use media storage for BLOB intensive applications than relying on databases.

Should I use GridFS or some other method to create a file sharing app?

1 Answers1