Need Cloud Storage Info

Web Development
1

Greetings,
I am contemplating beginning a new fly tying forum because the one I have participated in for many years is not being maintained sufficiently. For instance, uploading images has become very problematic. This is an entirely free forum and ‘someone’ is footing the bill for everything and will not allow member’s to contribute to cover costs. While I am well accustomed to this interesting and valuable site, the current issues are not being corrected and have frustrated many members.

That said, I am thinking of starting a new fly tying forum, but it will be a pay-to-join forum. The fee will be minimal - monthly or yearly - only meant to defray cloud storage and server yearly fees. I hope to set it up so that the $$ aspect will be as seamless and trouble free as possible.

The obvious elephant-in-the-room is how to attract member’s since I would never be allowed to advertise in the current fly tying forum. The answer to this may reveal itself sooner than later.

My question is this: can someone recommend an affordable cloud storge vendor that would work for this type of image uploading forum. I am looking at iDrive as it seems to have great and affordable features, but I am sure there are others that I have not come across.

I will add a Must Read doc explaining how to reduce the size of images before uploading. A of people still have no clue about these things. There is no reason to upload a 1M image when a 200kB (or less) sized image will suffice. So image size will be restricted to a resonable degree.

To be clear, I have never set up a site such as this so I am probably overlooking quite a bit. I am, however, willing to do the work to make this a great site for those with a passion for fly tying and fly fishing.

Any and all comments or suggestions will be greatly appreciated.

Thank you.

2

Hi @Phillip,

A forum should be hosted on a webserver, not on a cloud storage solution like iDrive. The reason is that cloud storage is just that: a place to put files in the cloud. A forum requires execution of code on the server through PHP as well as running a database, something that cloud storage providers generally do not allow.

So: refocus your search on webhosting providers instead.

I’m not really familiar with the US webhosting market, but some hosters offer unlimited storage for a fairly low price (think around the $5/mo mark) for shared hosting.

Take a look at this comparison: The Best Web Hosting Services for 2022 | PCMag

Cheers,
Erwin

3

@Erwin-Leerentveld

Sorry for the confusion. I have several websites on ChilliDog hosting so I am aware of the use of a web host.

I was looking for suggestions for a cloud service onto which I could place images from my contemplative website.

Thank you for the cloud comparison link. I was looking at this cloud storage review.

Please accept my apologies for my poor wording.

Thanks.

4

Hi @Phillip,

No need to apologise =)

So you’d run your site on a webserver and need a cheaper mass storage solution for the files people upload?

Then my first thoughts are:

1. you should pick a cloud storage solution that allows your storage space to be used this way
– not every service out there allows you to share the storage with others

2. you’d need to give each and every user of the forum rights to store (write) files to the folder on the cloud storage solution
– simply opening the storage to everyone would make you a target for people that seek to store their illicit images and videos and that could make you liable for illicit images and videos stored on your storage

3. ideally, when an account is created in the forum software, that account should automatically be created on the cloud storage solution
– you don’t want to manually create accounts on the storage solution everytime someone signs up

Point 1 is of course the gest of your question, but I can’t really help you with that. Where I live, storage that comes with webhosting is cheap and plentiful, so I really never have to look for outside solutions.

Having said that, remember that WWW stands for “world wide web”, so it doesn’t matter where in the world your site is hosted. Look over the border.

I’m based in the Netherlands and pay about US$4/mo for 100GB of storage and unlimited bandwidth (link) and could upgrade to unlimited storage for another US$4/mo, so US$8/mo total.

My hoster offers .com addresses, but I’m not sure if they accept American customers. Perhaps you could check with them (no worries; everyone in the Netherlands speaks English).

If not, or if you’re not comfortable with hosting internationally, perhaps someone from the US can give a better answer to this point.

Point 2. would require some coding and a cloud storage solution provider that offers out-of-the-box APIs to create accounts in this way.

Point 3. would require forum software that allows you to integrate the APIs from point 2.

If you can’t do the coding and integration yourself, it would probably be more economical to get a larger webhosting package instead of relying on a cloud storage solution. If you limit the file size that users can upload and make clear that the image retention period is limited (say 60 days or so), you could go a long way with a 10GB package. Chillidog offers that for $19/mo. If you ask your members to pay $1/mo, you’d only need 19 members to make it viable. See point 1.

Food for thought!

Cheers,
Erwin

5

@Phillip I’m not clear on all the constraints you are under, but as a general default I would recommend the Repository stack so folks can easily upload images for a website.

If you specifically want to use a forum then virtually all forum software contains the ability to let users upload images. In fact, if I was at a forum that then required me to upload images some “other way” outside the forum: that would seem very strange (even if possible). And, as far as I know, forums really need to be run on proper web hosting.

However, I may be misunderstanding the challenges you are facing.

6

Thank you for your post.

You are not misunderstanding anything whatsoever about what I was planning to do. However, all of that has changed, for the time being anyway.

I was able to get some feedback on starting a new fly tying forum from two members of which I have contact outside of this forum. They both felt that this would be a waste of time. One noted that there are several ‘fly tying’ forums on FB. I do not do any social media so I would never know any of that. I was probably saved a lot of time and money by not going forward with this public forum.

However, I have mixed a fly fishing page into my woodworking site and have always thought that it would be best for my fly fishing/tying interests to be placed on their own site. If there is a need later on to allow others to participate, then I will make that adjustment.

Now I just need to come back up to speed on all of the new features of Foundry V2. I will also need a new domain name.

I sincerely appreciate your help,
Phillip

3 Likes
7

@Phillip I have just come across your post and thought I would mention that I have set up something similar on a totally different topic - it works well for me. I recommend you look into Sitelok for the members side of things and an associated plugin known as ‘Messaging & Profile Plugin’ Here is the link to the plugins page: Plugins. Both are great and work well together. Support is fantastic too. The plugin also gives you Admin rights so you can vet what is being posted. The website will still need to be posted somewhere and be secure. Otherwise setting up a private FB Group may be an alternative if you do not want to set up a website.

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@fg8

Thank you for your comments and suggestions.

This endeavor has not made much progress. As of today, the owner/developer of the site has not corrected the image uploading issue has plagued the site for several weeks. This is a non-pay site with many member’s all of whom want it fixed. I was told that sometime in the past member’s offered to help the owner defray his costs. He refused.

One moderator has contacted the owner but has not heard back from him. No return contact could mean a lot of things so I won’t speculate.

I have reached out to a few member’s for their feedback, one of which mentioned, as you did, about there being several fly tying ‘forums’ on FB. I do zero social media so I would not be aware of this.

If possible I would like to just purchase the site and migrate it over to my own web host and fix this issue. The is turning out to be much more than just cloud storage.

If I do get further involved it is not because I have nothing better to do, because my plate is overflowing as it is. However, if the site can be salvaged at a resonable cost then perhaps it could become a win-win situation. If member’s wish to help out then that would help as well.

I have no idea where this will all end.