Photo Limit

[gussy]

Are we having problems with space for photos? I'm not complaining, but just wondering why we have a 1MB limit while most sites, even smaller ones, don't have limit. I think it's funny when you read old threads and people are talking about the "picture" that is no longer there and people replying "great picture".

[mps9506]

Contributing members do get a little more freedom in gallery size and file size I believe.
But yes, bandwith is always an issue when it comes to hosting photos.
IME, most VB sites have similar policies in affect when it comes to hosting photo galleries.
The really old threads have issues because a lot of people attached photos to the thread, and when we had a db crash we lost a lot of photos attached to the threads. photos stored in galleries were not affected.
Travis has taken measure to ensure that will not be a problem again.
I can't remember the limit, but I think contributing members get a 10meg upload limit and 200k filesize. I might be wrong, one of the other mods or T please correct me if I am wrong.

[Travis]

Hey Gussy, I've always aimed to be perfectly straight with the members here and this will be no exception, so I'll tell it how it is:

Those smaller sites without limits will soon learn the same lesson we did- that disk space is something that absolutely must be regulated- it only goes up, never down.

As it is, our photo gallery is responsible for 83% of the disk space we occupy, which has a direct effect on server costs (moreso than bandwidth as a matter of fact).

As we grow, the disk space grows exponentially. To the point where, without limits, the cost to maintain RS would be several hundred dollars per month a lot sooner than you think.

One other thing that happens without limits- people aren't required to downsize photos, so they go ahead and upload that 250K file that would have been perfectly fine at 45K. Well, those 205K are now permanently on our server doing no good unless I go in and start deleting members' photos, which I have absolutely no intention of doing.

I did a quick check, and ReefCentral, who charges more per month off one sponsor than we do from all of ours combined, has a 50K max upload size in the gallery (ours is 100) for regular members, and 125K for contributing members (ours is 200).

They do allow more space for regular members at 2MB versus our 1MB, no surprise since they have a dedicated server. But contributing members there get 5MB vs. our 10 here.

And by the way, they no longer allow GIF or JPEG image attachments in threads, we do.

All of this to say, there have to be reasonable limits to keep ReefSanctuary viable long-term. I think ours are fair and reasonable- however, this site is set up for our members and if many of you feel that 1MB is unreasonable I will be happy to reconsider.

Travis