Separate docker volumes for uploads and backups

[schneeland]

Have a closer look at app.yml and the Discourse docker image again as part of a new install, I was reminded that in the standard install, all data except for logs is handled via a single docker volume.

Now this is probably varying between communities a lot, but if I look at our existing community, a lot of disk space is taken up by backups and also by user uploads. And I think it would be helpful if these two could be moved more easily to another volume (with potentially lower read/write speed), while keeping the database on the primary volume (with higher read/write speed)^[1]. This would allow communities with a larger number of uploads to be a bit more lenient in terms of upload size.

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1. As an example: on a Hetzner CX22 VServer, the main disk is faster by roughly a factor 3 compared to additional block storage volumes that can be added to the server. ↩︎

[pfaffman (Jay Pfaffman)]

They can. Just change the app.yml to have them be wherever you want. You can have uploads, backups, postgres, any of them all wherever you like.

[Canapin (Coin-coin le Canapin)]

And here’s the related documentation:

Move Uploads and Backups to DigitalOcean Block Storage

So you want to move all uploads and backups to DigitalOcean Block Storage? Before you do this, though, you might instead consider Configure an S3 compatible object storage provider for uploads. It is no more complicated to set up and provides some other advantages. Setup a Discourse instance on DigitalOcean Setup a Discourse instance on DigitalOcean using our official guide. Add a Volume to your droplet Add a block storage volume to your droplet. Note down the name of the volume. In my case t…

I’m not sure why the guide specifically targets DigitalOcean. I remember doing the same exact steps with Hetzner with no issues.

[schneeland]

Thanks! I didn’t realize a container rebuild is all it needs.

Thread can be closed, then. I’ll follow the guide @Canapin linked.